Anatomy Of A Rickenbacker Bass Part 8

[rickfan60]

Excellent! These are the kinds of supplemental posts I was hoping for.

The RCA instruments were made at the request of RCA and were presented to certain RCA signed artists in conjunction with some awards. At least that is how I remember it.

[jingle_jangle]

The hump is most likely a result of retooling the router patterns or patching the old tooling. It's just one of those details that somehow slipped through the cracks; this is something that just happens for various reasons. I find that a lot of details on old Rickenbacker instruments are quite inconsistent and left to individual initiative--it seems that, in the '60s and before, employees had different ways of accomplishing the same tasks involved in building a guitar or bass.

Beginning in the mid-'80s things rapidly became more consistent and predictable. In between, there would have been a transitional era when all of the hundreds of tiny decisions and tasks would have had to be addressed and standardized, in order to improve throughput and bring everything up to the quality made possible by the CNC rough mill work.

The '72 bass I just completed had the control knobs positioned in such a way as to make it impossible to place one's fingers on the two volume knobs in the normal way. The '83, of course, has a better spacing. I look at my stack of Rickenbacker bass pickguard routing patterns--all based on original guards--and can see how the shape and knob spacing changed over the years. It seems like every few years there was a running change of some sort or other.

Now things are quite consistent and standardized, at least to my eye. It must be a pleasure to look at a whole run of instruments and know that they represent such a high standard of consistency!

[basmansam]

Were the plexiglass trussrod covers different lengths?? I noticed that my pre '75 tr covers are shorter than a 4001 V63 tr covers. I guess this was to allow for short or long headstocks.

[rickfan60]

Thanks for that Paul. Your pick guard templates would tell the tale. Yes, all of the process was manual early on and left to the interpretation and preference of the worker.

I did not know you were making replacement guards. I certainly would have mentioned your name along with Tony's in the original post.

[rickfan60]

Were the plexiglass trussrod covers different lengths?? I noticed that my pre '75 tr covers are shorter than a 4001 V63 tr covers. I guess this was to allow for short or long headstocks.

Yes. the 70's Plexi covers were made to be the same shape and have the same hole placement as the molded covers. The smaller headstock meant less room for the TRC and less room for variation.

[jps]

Were the plexiglass trussrod covers different lengths?? I noticed that my pre '75 tr covers are shorter than a 4001 V63 tr covers. I guess this was to allow for short or long headstocks.

Yes. the 70's Plexi covers were made to be the same shape and have the same hole placement as the molded covers. The smaller headstock meant less room for the TRC and less room for variation.

The plexi TRCs on my '67 4005WB and two '73 4001s are different lengths, which again are different than that of the RI plexi TRCs I have.

[jingle_jangle]

Thanks for that Paul. Your pick guard templates would tell the tale. Yes, all of the process was manual early on and left to the interpretation and preference of the worker.

I did not know you were making replacement guards. I certainly would have mentioned your name along with Tony's in the original post.

No problem, Ted. I usually make them for the restos that I do. Virtually every RIC bass that I've done has a guard that I made (including Paul Boyers' Mink and Russ Rubman's AquaBass, which have back-painted pearlescent guards.

[ilan]

Don Adamek also makes great repro guards for Rics.

[falconfixer]

Pickguard material on mine is (AFAIK) white polystyrene plastic (same as plastic models at the hobby store

[rickfan60]

If it is an original RIC pickguard it should be made of acrylic sheet. Never say never when it comes to RIC but I don't think styrene was ever used as a pickguard material or anywhere else for that matter.

[cjj]

I'm wondering why you think it's polystyrene...

[rickfan60]

Again, excellent, Ted. I learned something I don't think you intended, too. I did not know the 4002 basses have 21 frets.

Anyway, another home run.

That is one of the many cool things about the 4002!

[daveman]

2 comments/questions - one about bass nuts, one about pickup spacing.

Nuts:

Rickenbacker nuts are unique in that they are taller than nuts from most other makers. This is entirely due to the fact that the fingerboard is 3/8” thick. Most “standard” nut blanks sold today are not tall enough to be used on Rickenbackers so many repair techs glue two smaller blanks together to get the proper height. This works but is not the most elegant way. Taller nut blanks are available with a little searching.

I have used a Graph Tech Trem-nut 1/4" slab guitar saddle blank with success. You can make 2 bass nuts with one blank.

The easiest way to replace a Rickenbacker bass nut is to buy one from a Rickenbacker dealer and shape it to fit your instrument and tastes. Current production nuts will fit on most basses going back to the mid 60's with very little if any alteration.

I haven't had much luck with the authorized replacement nuts - for some reason they don't fit my basses.

Pickup spacing:

Neck Pickup Spacing
From '61 to '75 the neck pickup was mounted at what is commonly called half inch spacing. It turns out that the actual distance is a bit more than that but a half inch is close enough. The spacing changed to 1 inch (also an approximation) sometime during 1975 putting the pickup right where the 24th fret would be. This move was intended to improve the sound of the instrument and was apparently not an attempt to address dead spots.

I had understood that the reason for moving the neck pickup back 1/2 inch was to improve the stability of the area where the neck joined the body -- the original design created a large hole (the pickup route) too close to where the neck came free from the body wings, creating an area of weakness that could lead to neck problems. I had not thought it was intended to "improve" the sound of the instrument (and I don't think it does).

[rickfan60]

I have never tried Graphtech nuts. Thanks for the tip! How don't factory nuts fit your basses? Too wide / tall?

There has been lots of speculation about the reasons for the move to 1" and what you say makes sense. JH said that one of the design staff back then felt the move would improve the sound. It is one of the many questions I did not ask Dick Burke when I had the chance.

[Mossman]

If it is an original RIC pickguard it should be made of acrylic sheet. Never say never when it comes to RIC but I don't think styrene was ever used as a pickguard material or anywhere else for that matter.

I'm not a plastics expert, but I used to work in the screen printing industry, and have printed on a lot of polystyrene... It's not the kind of material you would want to make a pickguard out of.... Not really the kind of material you'd want to print on, either...