Coils, Modules & Pick-Ups

John Birch was an English luthier mainly known for his electric guitars. Some of his customers included Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath, Brian May of Queen, Dave Hill and Jim Lea of Slade, Gerry Shephard of The Glitter Band, and Roy Orbison. more...

Home
ATV Parts
Apparel & Merchandise
Automotive Tools
Aviation Parts
Boat Parts
Car & Truck Parts
Air Conditioning and Heat
Air Intake & Fuel Delivery
Brakes
Charging & Starting Systems
Computer, Chip, Cruise...
Cooling System
Decals, Emblems, & Detailing
Emission System
Engines & Components
Exhaust
Exterior
Filters
Gaskets
Gauges
Glass
Ignition System
Caps, Rotors & Contacts
Coils, Modules & Pick-Ups
Distributors & Parts
Electronic Ignition
Ignition Wires
Key Blanks
Other
Spark Plugs & Glow Plugs
Interior
Lighting & Lamps
Other Parts
Safety & Security
Salvage Parts Cars
Suspension & Steering
Transmission & Drivetrain
Turbos, Nitrous,...
Wheels, Tires & Parts
Car Audio, Video
Manuals & Literature
Motorcycle Parts
Other Vehicle Parts
Personal Watercraft Parts
Racing Parts
Services & Installation
Snowmobile Parts
Vintage Car & Truck Parts
Wholesale Lots

The Company's Beginnings

John Birch was born in Nottingham, West Bridgford in 1922. He became involved in guitar building as a young RAF officer based in the South Pacific Islands in WW2. While stationed there, he formed a band called "The Wykki Islanders," and as supplies of instruments were hard to find, they built them out of RAF parts.

After the war was over, he came back to Nottingham and started a business modifying existing guitars. Beginning in the 1960's, he mostly worked with Gibsons, an example of which is the white Gibson SG Junior Leslie West of Mountain gave to Tony Iommi (the guitar is currently owned by Greg Dorsett of Rock Stars Guitars). He eventually started building his own guitars. Later he moved his shop / factory to a large house at 106 New Road in Rubery, Nr. Birmingham GB.

Birch started to advertise his parts, pickups, and guitar customization in a magazine called Beat International in the late 1960's. John Diggins saw one of these ads and showed one of his custom guitars to John Birch. Diggins was offered a job and became part of Birch's workshop. Arthur Baker came in as a production manager, breaking down the various jobs around the shop to create an assembly line like process. Birch was mainly in charge of electronics and pickup making while Diggins mostly took care of woodworking. There were many other employees through the years, though the roles stayed largely the same.

The very first guitars that were made completely in shop were SG or Les Paul shaped, featured 24 fret fingerboards, and a black or white finish. At first, the fingerboards were Brazilian rosewood, but eventually the expenisive and rare Brazilian Rosewood was replaced with more plentiful and cheap maple fingerboards.

The majority of the shop's guitars, like those of most small outfits meeting the demands of players during the British Invasion, were built quickly and on the cheap. John Diggins, however, was a master craftsman and always built top notch instruments at the shop.

Customers

Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath came to Birch's shop after having his ideas rejected by the major guitar manufacturers of the time, such as Gibson and Fender. Iommi was looking for someone to make him a guitar with a 24 fret fingerboard and high power/low noise pickups. Iommi's red Gibson SG Special received some modification in the form of a re-covered Gibson P-90 in the bridge position and John Birch's own Simplux in the neck position. This guitar is in the Times Square Hard Rock Cafe. In 1975, Birch built Iommi his black 24-fret, cross inlay SG Special. This was the main guitar used on the albums Technical Ecstasy, Never Say Die, Heaven and Hell, and Mob Rules. This guitar is now in the Miami Hard Rock Cafe. Around the same time Birch's SG was built, John Diggins also built Iommi's Jaydee SG, which features a custom wound pickup by Diggins in the bridge position and a standard Biflux in the neck position. The guitar also has peeled and cracked paint due to a rushed finish job. During the Cross Purposes tour, the guitar was left in a hot car on a date in Brazil, and the finish bubbled and cracked due to the heat. This guitar was first used for some overdubbing on Heaven and Hell, but quickly became Iommi's main guitar. The Birch shop also built a guitar for Tony that featured the ability to remove and replace pickups. The pickups plugged through the back into slots which had quick connectors that allowed them to be pulled and replaced easily, and didn't require any soldering. This allowed for more tonal options than any standard guitar, no matter how complex its wiring. Geezer Butler also had some basses made by Birch, one of which can be seen in the music video for Black Sabbath's "A Hard Road."

Read more at Wikipedia.org