Cure for 'twisted neck' on Rick 660/12?

hifiguy247 · Post by **hifiguy247** » Fri Aug 17, 2012 2:41 am

Hello all, I recently picked up a beautiful 660/12 on Ebay. Naturally, the strings needed replacing and the bridge was set so high that I could not press down the strings. Upon doing some research, I discovered that a local guitar luthier named Dave Neely works on Tom Petty's and Mike Campbell's 660/12's, so I took my Rick to him. Two weeks later, he called to say that this particular guitar was never going to be any good, since it has a 'twisted' neck. In order to get the guitar to play, he had to keep the strings very high, which makes it nearly impossible to play chords. To keep the action as comfortable as possible, he installed a set of Ultra-light gauge (.041) strings made by Thomastic Infeld Vienna flat wounds on it - the tone quality through my Fender Showman amp is amazing, especially when I stomp on my Janglebox Byrds Limited Edition compressor pedal.
Have any of you Rick 12-string owners had this 'twisted' neck problem? When I called Rickenbacker about a repair, they said they will not touch a guitar out of warranty and that "I was on my own." Is this typical of Rickenbacker's approach to customer service? Why won't they just charge me to repair this neck, I'm not sensitive to price and would gladly pay any amount to get this guitar to play like it's supposed to.

Would the neck have to be replaced?
Who could do this level of work? Dave Neely said "it wasn't worth it." What do you guys say?

Thanks in advance,
Albert Von Schweikert
Chief Design Engineer
Von Schweikert Audio
http://www.vonschweikert.

ken_j · Post by **ken_j** » Fri Aug 17, 2012 8:27 am

Welcome to the RRF Albert. I know that Dale Fortune has a jig that uses heat with some sort of press fixture to make such repairs. I do not have contact info for him but others on the forum may. I believe he is in the Pacific Northwest area. I'm not on facebook, but here is a link to his page.

jps · Post by **jps** » Fri Aug 17, 2012 9:13 am

Welcome, Albert!

Nice to see someone in the high end audio field, here.

Can you post photos of what the twist is like? Possibly, it could just be a broken truss rod, which is easily repairable.

hifiguy247 · Post by **hifiguy247** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 2:10 am

Hi Ken and Jeff, thanks for your input, it is much appreciated. Both of the truss rods are OK. Dave Neely and I tried using the truss rods to retwist the neck in the opposite direction of the twist, but the truss rods do not have enough torque to do the job. Dave said he had an assistant hold the neck as straight as he could, with the strings off the guitar, then tightened the truss rods in the correct direction to counter the force of the wood. Unfortunately, the wood has "frozen" into position and will not move. Some background on this guitar: it was bought new by a collector who stored it in a closet (in the case) for 10 years. In fact, the guitar has never been played, even the Warranty Card is blank and there were no marks on the body paint (Midnight Blue) or fingerboard lacquer. There weren't even fingerprints anywhere, it was a genuine NOS guitar! However, the collector did not loosen the strings, which eventually twisted the neck after sitting for 10 years. The collector sold me the guitar under the pretense that "it was perfect" and in many ways, it is brand new. I'm in love with this paint color, it's my 3rd Rick 12, but my first solid body - the first one I owned in '67 was a Mapleglo 360/12 and the second one I bought was a 330/12 Fireglo. I'm interested in finding someone who can retwist the neck, and Ken_J came to the rescue with the info on the guy with the heat press. I'm sure that only heat (or steam) and clamping might work, as the neck is likely impossible to switch since the 660 is a neck-through-body design as you guys know.

Please keep the ideas coming, as I can't sell the guitar and don't want to use it as "art work" on my studio wall. I'm dying to get that McGuinn tone going again; have been playing "Back From Rio" and "Best Of The Byrds" over and over on my big VR-9 speaker system in my studio.

jps · Post by **jps** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 3:18 am

Hmm... I'm thinking Paul should be able to come up with a plan to cure this, although it may take a bit of surgery on his part to make it happen. Paul lives in the Marin County area and his shop is in San Francisco; he would be my first choice of recourses. Failing that, there is Dale Fortune or Mark Arnquist, both of whom previously worked at Rickenbacker and may have possible cures for the twist. My bet is on Paul, however, he will most likely see this and be by shortly.

david/wales/u.k · Post by **david/wales/u.k** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 6:20 am

This has got me thinking once again about buying on ebay..After all the trouble that Paul (jingle jangle) had with that Ric 'butcher' (see the section breaking up nice old rics for profit) and now this. I don't know if the guy sold this knowing that there was a problem, perhaps if he didn't play it as you said, he may genuinely not have known but I haven't got much confidence in ebay sorting anything out if it goes wrong....btw have you contacted ebay and if so what was their response?

ken_j · Post by **ken_j** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 8:13 am

I had a 12 string come across my bench with a similar problem. It was strung with Pyramids and had a heck of a twist. I was unable to pull out the twist with the rods and strings removed. I then went to pull the rods to see if there were any issues with them. One rod came out but the other was stuck in the channel. The masking tape that wraps the rod was the problem. I had to slowly pull the rods by pulling agaisnt different length blocks of wood. After removing the rod I had to clean out the channel of galled up tape. New rods were purchased through the RIC boutique and installed but they could not pull the neck straight. The owner sent the guitar to Dale where he used his fixture with heat over a period of time. The issue was resolved. I wouldn't be surprised if Paul, Larry, and Mark are equiped to take on such repairs. I only mentioned Dale due to past history.

doctorwho · Post by **doctorwho** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 3:26 pm

In Orange County, there is also Steve Soest (http://www.soestguitar.com/) who straightened out my over-bowed 331LS neck using the heat clamp technique.

hifiguy247 · Post by **hifiguy247** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 10:23 pm

Thanks fellow Rickenbacker owners, you've given me the confidence to stay the course. I've made arrangements to ship the guitar to Geoff at San Francisco Guitar Works based on seeing a pictorial story on how they disassembled then repaired a Rickenbacker neck which had major damage. Geoff says he has fixed the twist by using heat and clamps and that my 660/12 should be as good as new after he's done with it. I'm having him PLECK the frets as well, I want the action to be so low that I don't have to press hard to make a clean-sounding chord. I really like the Thomastik Infeld Vienna flat wound strings, am using the Ultra-lights with .041 bottom E string.
I'll let you all know how it turns out, I'm pretty confident that my guitar will be a winner. (It certainly looks very cool in the Midnight Blue finish with the gorgeous checkerboard edge binding and gold pick guard). As to buying a guitar on Ebay, this is the last time I'm going to take my chances; I'm going to support our local dealers in the LA area as long as they keep nice guitars in inventory. It seems that Rick dealers are few and far between; one told me there is a one year waiting list to get a new 660/12!
AVS

jps · Post by **jps** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 11:15 pm

There are some excellent dealers scattered around the US that are the best.

Pick Of The Ricks (Chris Clayton), for one, Wildwood guitars, for two.

Ebay can be a bit of a gamble, but I would trust anyone here on the RRF in the marketplace for second hand instruments; we are a very close knit family here.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Sun Aug 19, 2012 11:40 am

hifiguy247 wrote:Thanks fellow Rickenbacker owners, you've given me the confidence to stay the course. I've made arrangements to ship the guitar to Geoff at San Francisco Guitar Works based on seeing a pictorial story on how they disassembled then repaired a Rickenbacker neck which had major damage. Geoff says he has fixed the twist by using heat and clamps and that my 660/12 should be as good as new after he's done with it. I'm having him PLECK the frets as well, I want the action to be so low that I don't have to press hard to make a clean-sounding chord. I really like the Thomastik Infeld Vienna flat wound strings, am using the Ultra-lights with .041 bottom E string.
I'll let you all know how it turns out, I'm pretty confident that my guitar will be a winner. (It certainly looks very cool in the Midnight Blue finish with the gorgeous checkerboard edge binding and gold pick guard). As to buying a guitar on Ebay, this is the last time I'm going to take my chances; I'm going to support our local dealers in the LA area as long as they keep nice guitars in inventory. It seems that Rick dealers are few and far between; one told me there is a one year waiting list to get a new 660/12!
AVS

Welcome to the RRF!

There are dealers who have 660/12s in stock; check the RIC website (last time I checked the shipping links were down, but the dealers' names are all there). As far as buying a Rickenbacker on Ebay, I have purchased something over 50 used Ricks on Ebay--it's my favorite shopping place--and NOT ONE has had any structural issues, so don't be too rash regarding the honesty of Ebay sellers.

There are more than a handful of expert luthiers here in the Bay area, and oftentimes you won't need a Rick specialist to solve a structural problem like straightening a neck, so I'd expect that you'll be quite satisfied with the job you'll get, as SF Guitar Works rates highly in many folks' opinions. Gary Brawer is also a good friend and great source for this type of thing. Gary also has a PLEK.

IMO the PLEK is the answer to the question nobody asked. No question it can produce the mathematically perfect neck, but the idea of a $50K+ machine being used to make an organic structure "perfect", when the human touch and experience is what's really needed, is ironic in the extreme. But, both Brawer and SFGW promote these heavily, and if their business is mostly guitars with much less sensitive necks than those found on Rickenbacker instruments, perhaps the human touch is not needed so much, and there's no doubt that these machines much be in frequent, if not constant, use in order to pay for themselves.

As far as finishing, refinishing, and knowledgeable restorations are concerned, there's still plenty of justification for turning to a Rick specialist such as myself for this sort of work.

hifiguy247 · Post by **hifiguy247** » Thu Aug 30, 2012 2:43 am

Hi Jingle_Jangle, thanks for the welcome! I just got back from Singapore, will be going to San Francisco next week with my 660/12 to have the twisted neck straightened out and the action set low. My standard for "playability" is my Eric Johnson 1957 Strat Reissue; this guitar has incredibly low action, even with heavy gauge strings. I can barely put two business cards in between the strings and frets and don't have any fret buzz. When I attempted to lower the action on the 660/12, I was able to get the strings almost as low, but can't play any notes above the 7th fret due to string buzz. To eliminate the fret buzz, I have to raise the strings very high, making chords very difficult to play, even though I'm using .041 to .010 strings, flatwounds with low tension from Thomastik Infeld Vienna. That is why I believe the neck really needs to be as straight as possible and the frets perfectly even.

Do any of you fellow Rick 12 players believe I'm chasing my tail trying to get the action as low as a six string? One of my local guitar playing friends says that no one expects a 12 string to play as easily as a six string. Although it was a long time ago, my 1967 360/12 had fantastic action as far as I remember. What do you fellow 12 string players try to achieve with your preferred string height?

Thanks in advance,
Albert Von Schweikert
Von Schweikert Audio

kiramdear · Post by **kiramdear** » Thu Aug 30, 2012 2:55 am

Hi, Albert,

My Carl Wilson 12 has action like a six stringer and plays 98% as easily. Paul W did the perfect setup. Good luck with "the operation".

Folkie · Post by **Folkie** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 8:03 pm

Hi Albert,

A Rickenbacker 12-string, when properly set up, should have very comfortable low action. My two 12'ers are easier to play than any of my 6-strings, despite the fact that I'm holding down twice as many strings. The key is to have the neck set up with no relief. I'm sure others will chime in and tell you more than I can. Good luck in getting that 660/12 in playable shape!

Robert

8mileshigher · Post by **8mileshigher** » Mon Sep 10, 2012 1:29 pm

Albert, does your Luthier have any pictures to share of this neck straightening process, it is undergoing

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