RIC History Questions

[Steve Gunderson]

At some point Rickenbacker chose to move the pickups on their 6-12 string models further back on the guitar body rather than the first pickup being at the neck. I am assuming that this was for strengthening the neck? Does anyone know when this was changed? Also a decision was made to do away with the full-width inlays replaced by the partial 'shark tooth' inlays. Does anyone know when this was done and why? I am probably asking too many questions here, but anyone know why they changed back recently to the full-width inlays? I appreciate the company very much and find their history fascinating.

[jps]

If I understand you correctly, what happened with the neck pickup is that Rickenbacker went to a 24 fret neck from a 21 fret neck so it got longer and extended into the body a bit, that is why the neck pickup is further from the edge of the body (not the neck).

The fingerboard inlays got smaller to increase the strength of the neck; the full width inlays took quite a bit of wood out of the fingerboard thereby weakening it. By making the inlays smaller there is more wood along the edges of the fingerboard making the whole neck stronger. The new full width inlays are very shallow compared to the old ones so there is virtually no loss of strength due to the cuts that are made for the new inlay material.

[libratune]

As far as the "when," the 24-fret neck for guitars and the triangle inlays for guitars and basses were phased in around 1973.

[jps]

Oy, I forgot about that part of the questions! What Ron said.

[Steve Gunderson]

Thank you, Jeffrey and Ron. Very interesting!