How often does this happen to Rick basses?

[mortivan]

OK. Here's my theory: the player fancied himself as an acrobatic showman/musician/entertainer, and during performances, stood on the curved top parts of the "wings" while spinning on the bottom strap button. Over time, the body "gave" at its weakest points, the angles between the neck and the wing curves - not because that's where the joints were, but because, physically, angles in a structure like that are the weakest points. (Cut a "V" in the edge of a piece of paper, then pull the paper by the opposite corners to rip it: the tear will start in the angle of the "V.")

That, and the bass belonged to a player in one of those Swedish neo-prog. groups, and always accompanied him into the sauna after the shows...

[rick12dr]

Don't blame Rickenbacker. If you could see their jointers used for putting a dead straight edge on the body halves and the center neck section, and see the clamping they use to glue everything together, you'd be convinced just how rock solid Rick basses are.The only things on a Rick bass anyone is ever likely to break, or break loose, is the headstock, or to pop the fingerboard off a pre-'84 with the old truss rods, due to ignorance of how they work.I had a early V63 I put new body wings on a few years back, and for kicks, I tried a heat gun to soften the glue joint to see if the body halves would come off that way. Let's just say I ended up bandsawing them off, because I was starting to scorch the surface of the wood, and the glue Still wasn't letting go...

[banta]

Dave, I've also worked with wood all my life and your sauna story is a reach at best. Unless you can come up with a reasonable scenario where abuse could have actually caused that separation, I think it's far more sensible to assume there was a mistake made in the factory. There are several things as I spelled out earlier that could have easily caused that to happen. The only thing I can possibly envision the user having done that may have caused that would be if he left the bass in the trunk of a car or in a hot attic for an extended period of time. In either case, I believe there would be other significant evidence to suggest that sort of negligence. And that may very well have been the case.

[dave4004]

Thank you, Don.

Mortivan, that would be a Finnish neo-prog group.

[jblakey]

Brad, IMHO I think you would be right about a possible Manufacturing/or glue defect if the separations were parallel and followed the straight line of the joints... but as I see it, the break merely starts where the neck enters the body, where torque would be greatest and most destructive in the case of some very hard fall, or smash. It would take great force to actually crack the wood, as it looks here with the crack running well into the bulk of the wings.