12-String Battle Royale

winston · Post by **winston** » Wed May 24, 2006 5:52 pm

Todd,

I have to agree on the 360-12 WB. But then again I am more than partial to the body shape and the double binding. I recently installed a pair of toasters on mine. Now it's absolutely perfect.

tony_carey · Post by **tony_carey** » Wed May 24, 2006 9:18 pm

John....fireglo!

epitreture · Post by **epitreture** » Thu May 25, 2006 9:28 am

Let's not forget the 620/12. With the narrow neck and the smaller size body it might be a perfect fit for a lady.

steverok · Post by **steverok** » Thu May 25, 2006 10:37 am

Plus the 620 has the lowest price tag, so there you have it ! Alisha - blonde hair, blue eyes - I suggest mapleglo (MG) or midnight blue (MB). Just make sure you get the new nut, with palatable string spacing, that's the most important thing. You can buy one at the Rickenbacker store now, if needed.

teb · Post by **teb** » Thu May 25, 2006 4:44 pm

Brian, I'm still playing with pickups on mine. It came with toasters and at the time I still had my other 360 with high-gains. The toasters had a nicer low end, but the high-gains had more screaming brightness (one of my all-time favorite things, in case you haven't already figured it out) so I switched the pickups on the two twelves and liked the sound better on both of them through the system I use. The only thing I really missed was that deep woody tone that the neck toaster has when used by itself, which is a nice alternative sound when you don't feel like jangling. So, I ordered a toaster for the neck and spent the afternoon today routing the top for a third pickup in the middle, cutting the middle hump off of the shark fin, converting my two high-gains to toaster covers and putting it all back together. I've always wanted a triple-pickup guitar and this is the last Ric twelve that I plan on buying, so what the heck. When the toaster gets here, I'll drop it into the neck rout and start playing with wiring. I may isolate the toaster on the neck circuit and run both high-gains to the bridge pots for starters, to see how it sounds. I was sweating bullets when it actually came time to take a router to the top of a perfectly good 1991 Rickenbacker, but it came out great. This one came with a vintage white, back-painted TRC and regular, white plexi guards. They basically look fine, but the mismatch bugs me just enough that I know that sooner or later I'll make matching back-painted guards. Probably tomorrow's project. My customers are probably wondering why on earth it's taking me so long to get their sails built.....

dean712 · Post by **dean712** » Thu May 25, 2006 8:50 pm

660/12 for me! I like the wider neck and the deluxe features.

melibreits · Post by **melibreits** » Fri May 26, 2006 4:25 am

Beautiful, Dean.... I LOVE the turquoise with the checkered binding and gold guards....

jdogric12 · Post by **jdogric12** » Fri May 26, 2006 4:31 am

EEEEWWWWW. Just kidding, of course. That's totally my bag too.

winston · Post by **winston** » Fri May 26, 2006 6:39 am

Todd,

can you post some pictures of your mods? I would love to see them.

Dean,

You should be chastized for teasing us with that beautiful guitar. I am jealous.

dean712 · Post by **dean712** » Fri May 26, 2006 11:47 am

Thanks, it is a nice guitar, I'm lucky to have found it. I need to actually try for some better photos - I just have a few I took when it first arrived a year ago.

teb · Post by **teb** » Fri May 26, 2006 6:49 pm

Hey Brian, How's this????

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/wbpg%20006.jpg

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/wbpg%20004.jpg

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/wbpg%20011.jpg

The toaster arrived from Mike Parks today, so I spent a lot of time messing with wiring. By the time I finally got the guards made it was too late to go out and get a fresh bottle of white paint for the backpainting on them. Normally, you leave the paper on the face side until you've finished the painting and edge polishing, but your question raised an opportunity that was too good to pass up....must be that pesky smartass streak that I've suffered with all my life. I'll remask and paint them tomorrow.

The real toaster went in the neck position and the middle and bridge pickups are the high-gains that I modified with toaster covers. Rather than dead centering it, I shifted the middle pickup just a bit (3/16" or so) closer to the bridge pickup to give me a slightly wider picking place between the neck and bridge pickups, which seems to be about where my hand normally is.

I decided to add a three-position mini toggle, connected to the middle pickup. In the mid position, the pickup is off. The forward position connects it to the neck pots and combines it with the toaster. The aft position switches it to the bridge pots and combines it with the bridge high-gain. With the two toggles I can now have neck pickup only, bridge only, neck and bridge, neck and middle, bridge and middle, neck and middle plus bridge blended in or bridge and middle plus neck blended in. Sounds crazy, but it allows me to still play with just the neck toaster, for that deep, rich sound, just the bridge for super brightness or a bunch of different blends. I only got about 20 minutes of playing time in when I was making sure everything worked, but it sounds really good with a nice range of tones available.

It's going to get shipped out to Mark Arnquist pretty soon to have the nut spacing maxed out, string pairing tightened up, the 12-saddle bridge installed, final set-up and some little stuff, but I think this one is really going to be a good one.

winston · Post by **winston** » Fri May 26, 2006 7:39 pm

Cool. Nice guitar.

I think if it was my guitar that I would have centered the middle pickup though. Just cause it looks weird to me and I am really into symmetry. I know, I know that's pretty anal but that's just how I am wired. No pun intended.

teb · Post by **teb** » Fri May 26, 2006 10:42 pm

I had the same thought when I did it and since the standard factory rout is about twice as wide as the magnets that hang down in there you can move the pickups about 1/4" back and forth. So when I put it in I drilled an extra set of little screw holes under the gasket that will center it if desired. It all depends on how serious I get about polishing my mediocre Travis picking technique. With the pickup centered I tend to hit it too often with the metal fingerpicks, which is annoying. If I get better at Travis picking or give up on it and stay with a flatpick I'll move it back to center where it looks more natural. This one's going to be a player and it's not going anywhere as long as I'm around, so I have no problem with mods that make it play or sound better. I told my wife that if I get run over by a bus or something to sit on it for ten or fifteen years and then sell it to the highest bidder. Here's what it looks like with the pickup slid over to the center.

teb · Post by **teb** » Sun May 28, 2006 8:29 am

Well, the guards are done and everything is put back together and actually works (even I get lucky sometimes). The back-painted white guards now match the TRC and look amazingly rich compared to the old white plexi ones. I polished the edges by sanding them all the way up to 12,000 grit Micro-Mesh and they do some really interesting light tricks from light coming in through the edges. From some angles they almost get a pearly look, even though they're just painted with plain white paint.

Pictures here (with the mid pickup centered for those who are symmetrically inclined):

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/gt%20005.jpg
http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/gr%20001.jpg
http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/gt%20004.jpg
http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/gr%20006.jpg
http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/gr%20010.jpg

I also pulled the TRC, sanded the paint off of the edges and polished them to match the guards. Now you can read the logo through the sides of the TRC...pretty cool.

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/gr%20007.jpg

That wood block with the slot in it and the blue tape padding, which can be seen in some of the pics, is what I used to remove the poles from the high-gains during the conversion to toaster covers. I peeled off the magnets and set the bobbins face down with the poles over the slot. Then I drove them out and down into the slot with a punch and hammer, cut off the buttons and drove them back in.

tony_carey · Post by **tony_carey** » Sun May 28, 2006 9:35 am

I too, like the deluxe features....