So How Does a Ric Get Refretted?

[Grey]

This is just something i'm curious about, my guitar dosen't need one at the moment but I can see it happening a few years down the road.

The lacqured fingerboard is no doubt going to cause problems and drive up the cost, do I have to take it somewhere special or could any luthier do it? And what about having it re-applied afterwards? I like the feel of bare rosewood fingerboards and if I already had to have it stripped I would be tempted to not have it re-applied.

[jingle_jangle]

Ricks take a fair amount of fret leveling before needing a refret...some I've seen have been leveled three times.

Nine out of ten luthiers will try to talk you into keeping the fretboard unfinished, with just a dose of oil. This is either because they don't or can't do it properly, or think it's too much trouble, or think Rickenbackers are snob guitars, or any one of a dozen or more reasons. In the end, it either comes down to expertise or personal prejudice, or both. Note also that the majority of luthiers here in the States are, strictly speaking, repair guys, with little experience in building or finishing and exactly ZERO experience with Rickenbacker finishes.

Back to oiling fretboards: Once you've oiled the fretboard, you're looking at a long time (months to years) before it will again accept a finish, should you later decide you want the shiny look and feel, after all. So, be sure you know what you want before committing to someone else's idea of what your guitar should look and feel like.

The other one out of ten [luthiers] will be glad to refinish your fretboard--in nitrocellulose lacquer. This works OK, but is not "factory", if that's important to you. It will look and feel slightly different than an ex-factory board, and will not be as durable.

A Rickenbacker refret, done properly, involves removing the old frets (depending upon the instrument, binding may come off, too), removing the finish on the fretboard, checking the crown radius and correcting it, refretting and rebinding.

Then, the new finish goes onto the fretboard, after the entire guitar except the fretboard is carefully masked off. When I do this, I rough level the frets and bevel the ends before filling the fretboard and fret seams. Following this, there's lots of sanding and careful binding scraping before vinyl sealer is applied and once again sanded. Then two separate applications of varnish, sanded between. After the last coats of varnish have cured, the 'board is wet sanded with #1000 grit, frets are skinned of the varnish on their tops, final leveling is done, and the whole fretboard and frets, too, are polished on my buffing wheels. Result is factory-new look and function.

Rickenbacker frets are not finished like any other guitar's. They are leveled with a top surface that is uncrowned--essentially flat--which is why most buzz slightly when unamplified. The varnish applied to the fretboard and frets, then skinned from the fret tops before they are polished, also flows into the fret bases and around the ends, making them easy on the fingers. The only exceptions to this scheme that I've found are (of course) early acoustics like the Ken Roberts, which had non-RIC bodies by Kay or Harmony, early Combos with unfinished fretboards, and factory-built acoustics until 2006. These all had fully-crowned and finished frets, because of having unfinished 'boards--no varnish to provide fillets and an easy feel. C58 reissues and pre-'59 Capris had slightly flat-topped frets but no varnish, and more attention was given the fret ends. Over the decades, many of the old Capris were leveled and releveled, with the result that the frets are flat-topped to the extreme with very little fret height left, yet they still play exceptionally well when properly set up.

[clementc3]

Rickenbacker seems to have a history of using "different" processes in their instrument manufacturing methods than most of the rest of the industry - the fretboard finish described above, conversion varnish instead of nitrocellulose, the "German carve" body top shaping, etc. I think many of these practices date back to the 1950's but I could well be mistaken.

Was there a particular reason (or person, perhaps Roger Rossmeisl) that was behind the company's decisions to use these methods instead of more common practices? Does anyone know if Mr. F. C. Hall had a keen interest in these technical aspects? Or were these the result of "normal" product differentiation efforts? (Or perhaps some of these used to be common practices that others have abandoned for cost reasons?)

[Grey]

Well the problem i'm having seems to be a combination of two things.

1) The frets being very, very low. Either from just being a Rickenbacker with low frets, or from the fact its 30 years old.

2) Theres a... 'buildup' of finish around the sides of the frets. Hmm, this is hard to describe. It looks as if the finish was actaully applied over the frets, as I can see it peeling away ontop. As a result, theres sort of a 'slope' on the sides of each fret and it causes my fingers to frequently slide over the frets when I don't want them to.

I absolutely love the guitar, but i'm not sure if it's something I need to have repaired because the guitar is old, or if its just one of those Rickenbacker things that I need to learn to 'deal with'.

I personally love the way bare rosewood feels underneath my fingers, but I don't want to change the guitar. I feel like if I had it referetted and opted not to have it refinished i'd be doing some kind of dis-service to the guitar, haha. Rickenbackers have lacqured fretboards and that's just the way it is. It's stupid I know, but there you have it.

[jingle_jangle]

Was there a particular reason (or person, perhaps Roger Rossmeisl) that was behind the company's decisions to use these methods instead of more common practices? Does anyone know if Mr. F. C. Hall had a keen interest in these technical aspects? Or were these the result of "normal" product differentiation efforts? (Or perhaps some of these used to be common practices that others have abandoned for cost reasons?)

I'm going to answer as much as I can based upon what I know, and draw some conclusions as well that some may disagree with, or some may have better information on.

I think the choice of conversion varnish beginning in roughly mid-1959 (a furniture finish and quite state of the art at the time) could very well have been as a result of Electro's paint supplier suggesting it. It's a furniture-type finish, so the cross-pollination likely came from the supply end. John Hall has told me that the conversion varnish (maybe back then only, or maybe right up till the recent use of UV-catalyzed polyester) was actually the supplier's most durable product, being used most often for wooden coffins, which undergo lots of environmental stress.

I'm also going to suggest that F. C. Hall was very active in this sort of choice. He was quite astute technically, and I think he took great interest in the smallest details of building guitars as well as selling them. In this sense, his son John and grandson Ben are chips off the old (maple) block.

There's no doubt in my mind that the finish became part of Rickenbacker's "quality" image and reputation. Whether this point of differentiation was initiated by F. C. Hall, or whether he adopted it based upon outside feedback, I couldn't say. There are some references in literature of the day, to Rickenbacker's "mystery" finishing process, and the fact that it yielded a finish of superior durability. This is born out by the number of older Rickenbacker instruments with finishes basically intact and serviceable after decades. As far as I can see, the use of "conversion varnish" for topcoats was not a common practice back in '59--Gibson, Fender, Gretsch, Martin, and others were using nitrocellulose right up until the 1980s, although polyester (in the guise of Fullerplast and similar products) was used back then as a grain filler and surfacer. During the late '70s, polyester surface coats came into common use for durability reasons by manufacturers in the Far East, Europe, and the Americas.

The cost ratio to finish a guitar as Electro did back then, versus as Fender did, would have been something like 3:1 or even greater. It wasn't that other manufacturers stopped using conversion varnish topcoats because of cost, but that they never started.

[jingle_jangle]

Eric, that buildup around the fret bases is exactly what I'm referring to in my above original answer, regarding Rickenbacker fretwork and fretboard finishes. You'll find upon inspection that it's thickest in the area where the neck joins the body, as a result of the various surfaces' spray patterns intersecting at that area.

If the frets are that low. it's time for a refret.

[clementc3]

jingle_janglewrote:

I think the choice of conversion varnish beginning in roughly mid-1959 (a furniture finish and quite state of the art at the time) could very well have been as a result of Electro's paint supplier suggesting it. It's a furniture-type finish, so the cross-pollination likely came from the supply end. John Hall has told me that the conversion varnish (maybe back then only, or maybe right up till the recent use of UV-catalyzed polyester) was actually the supplier's most durable product, being used most often for wooden coffins, which undergo lots of environmental stress.

I'm also going to suggest that F. C. Hall was very active in this sort of choice. He was quite astute technically, and I think he took great interest in the smallest details of building guitars as well as selling them. In this sense, his son John and grandson Ben are chips off the old (maple) block.

Thanks for the background information - I had always imagined Mr. F. C. Hall as more of an entrepreneur than a (high volume) luthier, based on his earlier work as a distributor for Fender (?). I guess that explains the company's willingness to try a variety of "different" ideas such as slanted frets, 12-to-6-string comb converters, Ric-o-sound, rotating 6 of a 12-string's tuners 90 degrees, and 12 strings on a standard-width neck, among others. (Not to say that Rickenbacker is the only innovative guitar maker - see the short-lived Vox guitar-organ (and other guitar organs), palm wah-wah, etc.)

[songdog]

Mike Lull refretted my 4001 a few years back. As I recall, he had to very carefully cut the varnish with a very sharp knife at the edge of the old frets before removing them, and because the fingerboard is bound, each fret was individually cut and shaped before it was installed. He didn't need to strip and refinish the fingerboard.

I ended up very happy with the results, despite the cost. It takes a very close-up examination to see any evidence of the work (other than, of course, the frets no longer have big notches torn out by roundwound strings). Not quite the better-than-new of Paul W's approach, but quite fine looking from the audience's perspective, and of course it plays much better now!

[jingle_jangle]

Mike Lull refretted my 4001 a few years back. As I recall, he had to very carefully cut the varnish with a very sharp knife at the edge of the old frets before removing them, and because the fingerboard is bound, each fret was individually cut and shaped before it was installed. He didn't need to strip and refinish the fingerboard.

I ended up very happy with the results, despite the cost. It takes a very close-up examination to see any evidence of the work (other than, of course, the frets no longer have big notches torn out by roundwound strings). Not quite the better-than-new of Paul W's approach, but quite fine looking from the audience's perspective, and of course it plays much better now!

This is something that a luthier who's not a Rick specialist would miss.

First off, in a Rickenbacker fret job, it's not necessary to shape each fret individually before installation, as Rickenbackers do not have shaped ends--the ends are beveled down to the binding, but left square when looking at them from the top. The many coats of varnish and the sanding and polishing take care of those square fret ends. This is quite suited to production.

I typically can replace frets on a bound Rickenbacker neck without disturbing the binding. I simply notch the fret tangs to fit around the binding. However, most Ricks that need refretting due to wear also have binding that's seen better days. I'll usually rebind these as a matter of course.

There is one big problem with knifing the varnish and replacing the frets--it permits moisture to get between the fret and the board, and between the fret and the old varnish. This hastens discoloration and deterioration of board and fret.
Bottom line (and nothing personal against the luthier), the fret job you describe takes about as long/costs about as much as an authentic Rickenbacker-type fret job, and yields results that are not as durable.

There's nothing nicer than a factory-fresh board:

[heinpete]

If I could see/imagine red dots on this neck below ? Could it be my bass in restauration process??? The fingerboard just looks amazing!!!

[jingle_jangle]

It's a guitar.

[Grey]

It does look quite nice. Hey, atleast on a 480 you can detatch the neck and not have to mask the guitar off.

[jingle_jangle]

481:

[godber]

SEXY!

Lovin' the fretboard.

[cjj]

NICE!!!!!!!!!!