Editing Rickenbacker (section)

=== Early history ===
George Beauchamp was a [[vaudeville]] performer, violinist, and steel guitarist who, like many acoustic guitarists in the pre-electric-guitar 1920s, was looking for some way to make his instrument cut through an orchestra. He first conceived of a guitar fitted with a phonograph-like amplifying horn. He approached inventor and violin-maker [[John Dopyera]], who made a prototype that was, by all accounts, a failure. Their next collaboration involved experiments with mounting three conical aluminum [[Resonator guitar|resonators]] into the body of the guitar beneath the bridge. These efforts produced an instrument that so pleased Beauchamp that he told Dopyera that they should go into business to manufacture them. After further refinements, Dopyera applied for a patent on the so-called tri-cone guitar on April 9, 1927. Thereafter, Dopyera and his brothers made the tri-cone guitars in their Los Angeles shop, under the brand name ''National''. On January 26, 1928, the [[National String Instrument Corporation]] opened, with a new factory located near a metal-stamping shop owned by Adolph Rickenbacher and staffed by experienced and competent craftsmen. The company made Spanish and Hawaiian style tri-cone guitars as well as four-string [[tenor guitar]]s, mandolins, and ukuleles.<ref name=Smith>{{Citation | last = Smith | first = Richard R. | title = The History Of Rickenbacker Guitars | place = Fullerton, California, USA | publisher = Centerstream Publishing | pages = 2–5 | year = 1987 | isbn = 0-931759-15-3}}</ref>

Adolph Rickenbacher was born in Basel, Switzerland in 1887 and emigrated to the United States to live with relatives after the death of his parents. Sometime after moving to Los Angeles in 1918, he changed his surname to "Rickenbacker". In 1925, Rickenbacker and two partners formed the Rickenbacker Manufacturing Company and incorporated it in 1927. By the time he met George Beauchamp and began manufacturing metal bodies for the "Nationals" being produced by the National String Instruments Corporation, Rickenbacker was a highly skilled production engineer and machinist. Adolph Rickenbacker became a shareholder in National and, with the assistance of his Rickenbacker Manufacturing Company, National boosted production to fifty guitars a day.<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|5–6}}

Unfortunately, National's line of instruments was not well diversified and, as demand for the expensive and hard-to-manufacture tri-cone guitars began to slip, the company realized that it would need to produce instruments with a lower production cost to remain competitive. Dissatisfaction with what John Dopyera felt was mismanagement led him to resign from National in January 1929. He subsequently formed the Dobro Manufacturing Corporation, later called Dobro Corporation, Ltd, and began to manufacture his own line of resonator-equipped instruments ([[dobro]]s). Patent infringement disagreements between National and Dobro led to a lawsuit in 1929, with Dobro suing National for $2 million in damages. Problems within National's management, as well as pressure from the deepening [[Great Depression]], led to a production slowdown at National. This ultimately resulted in part of the company's fractured management structure organizing support for George Beauchamp's newest project: development of a fully electric guitar.<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|8–9}}

By the late twenties, the idea for electrified string instruments had been around for some time, and experimental banjo, violin, and guitar pickups had been developed. George Beauchamp had experimented with electric amplification as early as 1925, but his early efforts, which used microphones, did not produce the effect he desired. Beauchamp also pursued the idea, building a one-string test guitar out of a 2X4 piece of lumber and an electric phonograph pickup. As problems at National became more apparent, Beauchamp's home experiments became more rigorous, and he began to attend night classes in electronics and collaborate with fellow National employee Paul Barth.<ref name=Bacon/> When they finally developed a prototype electric pickup that met their satisfaction, Beauchamp asked former National shop craftsman Harry Watson to make a wooden neck and body to hold the pickup. Somebody nicknamed it the "fry-pan" because of its shape, though Rickenbacker liked to call it the pancake.<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|9–10}} The final design Beauchamp and Barth developed was an electric pickup consisting of a pair of horseshoe-shaped magnets that enclosed the pickup coil and completely surrounded the strings.<ref name=Bacon/>