1989 230 Blueboy

[soundmasterg]

Well as promised almost 2 years ago, here are some pictures of my 1989 Rickenbacker 230, refinished in Blue Boy. It was originally red when it left the factory in 1989. I bought it used in 1991 and it had been refinished with black over the top of the red with acrylic lacquer. After many years, the black was checking and cracking due to too much finish, and perhaps to finish incompatibilites. When the pickup selector switch went bad, I decided it was time to refinish it. I stripped and sanded it down to bare wood, and since the binding was yellowing and cracking, I decided to redo that. I refinished in PPG conversion varnish, and Paul W. mixed the Blue Boy for me (thanks Paul!). I applied the paint 3-4 coats at a time and sanded in between, with the final sanding up to 2000 grit, and then buffed. ( A LOT of sanding!!) The frets also needed some work, and I decided to refret it. Since that is a job and a half, I decided to leave the neck un-lacquered for future ease of refretting, and just oiled it. I also decided that I didn't like the original control setup and replaced the circuit board and stiff pots with individual parts and modified control order. The original setup would have the switch down for the bridge pickup, but the upper controls were the active controls for the bridge pickup. The switch was up and that would be th eneck pickup, but the bottom controls were for the neck pickup. Needless to say, it seemed backwards....so I wired it up like a Gibson as far as the control arrangement, but kept the stock pot and cap values, and wired in the same caps and resistors that are in the original setup......the so called "semi-active circuitry without use of a battery" as the original literature advertised. The original neck pickup broke when I went to put it back in.....one of the wires going from the circuit board on the bottom of the pickup into the epoxy broke. It was impossible to find it without melting away the epoxy, and when I finally found it there was no way to attach a jumper wire to it without destroying the pickup. So I emailed RIC and they put a pickup up on ebay that they had laying around. I believe it was the last one they had too, and they are no longer made anymore. Luckily I was the high bidder. The new pickup was a bit hotter than my current bridge pickup, so I moved the bridge pickup to the neck since it's DC resistance was identical to my former neck pickup. ( I had measured it before it broke ) The new pickup went into the bridge position. It is a little bit later vintage pickup but it works and sounds fine. It is REALLY nice to have my baby back in operation, as this was my first ever guitar, and even better, it plays and sounds and looks better than it ever has! I suppose it probably increased the value too, but I don't care since I'll never sell it. Anyway, I hope you all like it! I am sure its one of a kind unless someone else has refinished theirs into this color.

Greg

[soundmasterg]

More pics.

Greg

[soundmasterg]

More pics again.

Greg

[soundmasterg]

Here is one more refinishing pic, and a final pic with my other RIC guitars to keep it company. Yes I do like blue...haha!

greg

[sloop_john_b]

Finally! Great job, Greg - she looks great!

[jingle_jangle]

Gotta lurv that BB. Looks good, Greg.

BTW, I hope I mentioned this--that paint I mixed must be clearcoated with lacquer or CV to achieve max gloss.

[melibreits]

Wow, Greg.... That is really cool-looking, and I'm not normally even a fan of Blueboy....

[soundmasterg]

Thanks for the nice comments! I think it is one of those body shapes that lends itself to BB pretty well.

Paul it got about 9 color coats with sanding in between, and 14 clear coats with lots of sanding afterwards, and then a buff. They were pretty thin coats too. A lot different than finishing with nitro thats for sure! I like how quickly it dries too.

greg

[jingle_jangle]

I'm glad you did the clearcoat, and the results are super, Greg. Congrats!

[BobKat]

I do not love BB but on that guitar it looks great.

[kennyhowes]

Very nice!

[soundmasterg]

Thanks everyone. It was certainly worth all the hard work.

Now I need to see if I can stop the microphonic squeals coming from the replacement bridge pickup......maybe thats why RIC kept it around instead of selling it on a guitar all those years ago? Or if I could figure out how to fix the original neck pickup that I still have laying around I could put the original set back into the guitar instead of one replacement pickup in there....

Greg