Re-inventing the wheel: Locally-based JKR introduces unique guitar to music industry

MANSFIELD - They should probably lighten their load.

Legendary rocker Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones said in an interview a couple of years ago that he works with about 15 guitars "all the time." Country music star Brad Paisley told a young fan on The Today Show that he has "too many" guitars.

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What if Richards could, essentially, pack his collection into one case? What if Paisley could get all of the sounds he wants out of one set of strings, leaving him with more time to focus on his assortment of cowboy hats? 

The guys from JKR Custom Guitars are here to help.

Bellville neighbors Joe Chapman and George Fleiner, along with Kyle Stanton, their sidekick from Shelby, like to say they've reinvented the wheel. Because they have.

Patented wheel

These three local entrepreneurs have struck upon one of the music industry's newest guitar modifications, or mods. It's a patented wheel containing four pickups that can be rotated on the guitar to provide the tone the guitarist desires.

For the uninitiated, a pickup is a magnet with a bundle of thin copper wire coiled around it that transforms the vibration from the strings into an electronic signal. These signals are then sent to a guitar amplifier, which boosts them to audible volumes.

There are hundreds of pickups to choose from, depending on the guitarist's preferred tone — rock, country, blues, jazz, heavy metal, whatever the genre.

What makes this invention unique is that the pickup wheel can be removed from the back of the guitar in seconds and replaced with another wheel. There is no need to mess with the strings.

Since each wheel includes four pickups, it's the equivalent of four guitars in one. Or eight in one. Or 12 or 16 in one, depending on how many wheels you have in hand.

"How cool is that!" said Tim Jackson, a singer/songwriter and two-time Grammy nominee who endorses the guitar on the JKR Custom Guitar Facebook page and the team's website, jkrguitarsllc.com.

"The Swiss Army Knife of guitars"

Local guitarist Taylor Schlupp, who appears on the music video for Paisley's newest hit, "No I in Beer," calls this creation "the Swiss Army Knife of guitars" during a 12-minute demonstration video on the JKR website and Facebook page.

"You can still play Keith Richards music on a Vince Gill guitar, but it doesn't sound as authentic," Chapman said. "To get the songs more original sounding, you'd want to use the same type pickup they use.

"With the wheel, a heavy metal guitarist, a rock guitarist and a country music guitarist could all use the same guitar."

Chapman, an electrician and musician who Fleiner calls "scary good," started kicking around the idea for a guitar wheel some 10 to 15 years ago. Once he began collaborating with Fleiner and Stanton, whose backgrounds are in tool and die, the idea came to life.

For now, they are working only with Fender Telecaster guitars. They order the bodies and necks of the guitar, already painted, and modify them. Stanton has a large workshop at home where he cuts the hole in the back to accommodate the pickup wheels, which they build.

"I've been playing guitar all my life," Chapman said. "I would take the ones I had and if there was a pickup I liked it would take anywhere from a half day to a day to wire them into the guitar. But if I said, well, I don't want to play this pickup on this song, I'd have to set the guitar down and grab a Les Paul or some other guitar with a different pickup.

"This is the best of both worlds because you can change pickups on the guitar with just the spin of the wheel. If you're in a studio recording a set of songs, maybe some rock and some country, you can use different types of pickups and change really quickly without having to carry a bunch of guitars to the studio."

Fleiner and Stanton designed the guitar's backplate, inscribed with their business logo. It's a court jester's cap and bells, because JKR sounds like "joker."

The J stands for Joe, the K for Kyle and the R for Fleiner's grandson, Rudy. Their creativity obviously didn't stop with the wheel.

"George and I have known each other for quite awhile," Chapman said. "We played music together. He started looking into the (wheel) with me. Him being the genius he is, I thought, why don't you join up with me and let's try and make this thing go?

"Between the three of us we started working together and it came together. We wanted to build a team where everybody can do something."

Stanton is happy to help, as long as no one asks him to play a riff.

"I would love to learn the guitar, but I'm not that talented," he said, laughing. "My job is to turn this into something marketable."

Chapman said he spent two to three years and between $10,000 and $15,000 on obtaining a patent.

"I was working in Athens, Ohio, and met this guy who had patents at his factory," Chapman said. "I was in his shop one day and I showed him this invention on video. He said, 'Man, you ought to get that patented before someone steals it.

"I immediately contacted a lawyer and started working on the patent. It took awhile, but I finally got it — on my birthday."

Fleiner, 72, retired after 40 years as a tool and die maker, the last 30 with General Motors. He's the bookkeeper and salesman for JKR, contacting vendors and otherwise getting the word out about their invention.

How it started

In October, 2018, JKR took part in the first Richland Idea Audition, a competition staged by the Richland County Foundation and Richland Area Chamber of Commerce and their partners at Ohio State-Mansfield. It was a local version of the popular TV show "Shark Tank," with entrepreneurs pitching their ideas to a panel of judges.

There were 30 entries, narrowed to six finalists, with JKR earning the $2,500 second-place prize. First place of $5,000 went to a group, led by two local doctors, that pitched "My Health, My Mammo," a way for breast cancer patients to have more control of their imaging.

"If I was a judge," Chapman said, "there was no way I would have voted for our entertainment thing over a health issue."

JKR also got great feedback in July 2019 when it took its guitars on the road to NAMM, the National Association of Music Merchants trade show in Nashville, Tennessee. The JKR booth was very popular.

"We had so many people coming around," Fleiner said. "They said it was the most visited booth there. People just wanted to see the guitar."

Some musicians came up and grabbed it right out of Chapman's hands. Many inquired about purchasing one. 

Because of the pandemic, JKR is holding off on selling the eight to 10 guitars it has already modified, taking time to gauge how much interest there is in the product.

So far, the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Fleiner took one of the guitar mods with him on vacation to Florida and that's where he met Jackson and Mark Gillespie, both members of the band Pickled Pickers. Gillespie played for years with country music star Trace Adkins.

"They loved it," Fleiner said.

Appearing on "Shark Tank" is a goal of JKR, especially since co-host Kevin O'Leary is a guitar enthusiast. When the team does get to the point where it markets the guitar, each will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $6,000 to $7,000. That will include a case and two wheels. Additional wheels will also be available for purchase.

"When it starts taking off and you get a professional to play it, it could end up being super hip," Chapman said. "It could be the blue jeans with holes in them. Back when we were kids, we threw those blue jeans away that had holes in them. Once they became hip, you could sell them for $100 a pair."