trapeze tail piece

[hjarnett]

hey guys i realy like the look of a trapeze tale piece what i want to know is there anyway i can ad one to my ric without drilling holes in my ric for the bracket will the strap button hold it? or could i drill holes in the bracket that would match up to R tail piece bracket so i wont have to drill holes in my ric

[jingle_jangle]

Beauty without commitment, hey?

Both methods you suggest are possible. Just remember that the bracket is stainless steel and tough to drill without a drill press (pillar drill).

Still, I would advise drilling the guitar...

[BobKat]

If you do not have a press, screw the bracket to a piece of wood, and then run a couple of pieces of masking tape over it. Make small holes in the tape where you will be drilling with a sharp punch or awl, and then drill carefully. The tape will keep the drill from wandering while you get a bite in the slick stainless. Drill small pilot holes first, then open them up.

[ken_j]

Since the two guitars listed in your signature are from '07 & '08 I believe that the hole patterns are the same as long as you get a recent tailpiece. RIC commonized these at some point.

[uffe]

ken, more details please

[ken_j]

At some point in the last few years RIC commonized the hole patterns of the R and trapeze tailpieces. This enables you to go from one to the other without drilling any holes. I recall a thread on this a few years ago. I have no first hand experince with trying to convert any. I don't remember the year that the change took place. If I recall correctly this was stated by JH but I could not find it in the search function.

[blueflamerick]

I recently purchased a trapeze tail piece and the holes do not match those of the R tail piece.

[jingle_jangle]

I've been swapping these back and forth for customers for three years now, and cannot recall a single instance of these being interchangeable. There's a chance, of course, that I had nothing but old bits, but quite a few parts came in those nice taped poly bags that RIC ships in...so I'm going to say that I don't believe they are interchangeable.

[deaconblues]

Ric commonized the strap button location, as I recall.

[uffe]

ken joseph,
commonized it to which pattern? the 'R' two-holer or the trap 4-banger? somewhere in between?

here's a 2008 'R'..
http://i23.ebayimg.com/05/i/000/e8/6e/488b_3.JPG

.. not compatible with my early '07 660 trapezoid bracket

[ken_j]

Obviously my memory is faulty on this one. I tried searching a number of posts and cannot find anything. As I recall someone had changed a tailpiece and only used the strap screw to hold it in place and glued screw heads of the smaller screws onto the tailpiece bracket to make it look right. Is it posible that there was two different hole patterns used on trapeze tailpieces through the years? Or maybe did this to convert from a Kauffman to a trapeze? It was then noted that the patterns were commonized after a certain date. Sorry I can't find it or remember.

[deaconblues]

Again, it was the hole for the strap button that was moved. The screw holes have never been altered.

http://www.rickresource.com/phpBB3/view ... strap+hole

Paul, if you can find an older (but not TOO old) trapeeze bracket, it will line up perfectly with the strap bolt. (A very modern one won't line up, because the hole was moved to be like the ones from the 60's.)

The secondary screw holes really aren't there for shear strength, as the strap bolt is pretty beefy, but only to keep the bracket straight. As a result, you could cut the heads off the screws, superglue them in as dummies, and therefore always go back later if you wished. I'd probably put two felt dots on the back of the tailpiece itself in case the bracket wanted to twist, although you could also put a star washer between the bracket and the wood that would be covered by either tailpiece.

[jingle_jangle]

Wow, that's an oldie of a thread...one of my first hundred posts, I'll bet. Adam Swapp (aka Chip Miller aka Winfield Restorations) is in the mix also...

Now I know where I got the idea of gluing the screw heads onto the bracket, too!

[ken_j]

Thanks for the link Daniel. I sure that was the one.

[deaconblues]

So has anyone actually ever used the felt pads and glued screwheads method? Does the trapeze twist without the screws to hold it in place?