Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Also, can I please see some pictures of the aqua bass. Thanks.

Go to page 25 of this thread for a look at the Aqua Bass nearing completion.

Ain't this just the bee's knees. Beautiful.

Paul, was there any difficulty sealing the walnut and clear coating? I like the look of the "shiny" walnut. Did it change the tone of the wood/guitar putting on the finish?

Great story, Tim. Congratulations to you and your team.

Hi Kira,

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

Actually, if you look at the list of things Paul had to do it makes my contribution rather minimal aside from a few suggestions.

This guitar (and this could answer John's question as well) underwent weeks of sealing, filling, sanding, drying, and repeat ad nauseam.

The neck was stripped, sanded, and refretted with vintage Rick frets. The body took a lot of filling of the walnut grain and twice as many clearcoating cycles as usual (2 filling applications, 3 sealing cycles, 4 vs 2 clearcoating cycles). Much more sanding as well, of course.

Most of the filler, sealer, and clearcoat was sanded off, all in the interest of filling the grain.

My 660/12 gold TRC that I had been keeping around fit perfectly on the new headstock Paul created out of the original 6-stringer. He made and painted a back electronics cover to match. He put together a 2-piezo harness with one element on the underside of the top behind the bridge, and one on the underside of the back, centrally-located. These are PZT ceramic units, which perform fine without any preamp, so no batteries will be necessary. There is a separate jack (in the old ROS location) and pot for the piezo to balance it in the mix, or go piezo alone if desired. New gold tuners.

A new, mono, 4-control harness has been installed, along with a new mono jack, The pickup selector, volume, tone, etc., are as on a stock mono Rick.

He painted the neck and headstock a couple of weeks back while in "spray booth" mode, and also masked twice and shaded the body around the edges and binding. NOT a "burst', just something to bring it into line, color-wise , with the neck and headstock.

Sooooo, it was a teamwork deal with Craig and a lot of Paul doing most of the work. I got to swim with manta rays and dolphins and a cute model as my part of the team. Hoo-hoo! So I'm happy with my contribution.

Amazing what goes into these creations. A lot of art and a lot of sweat.

You are so right, Tim. Most people can't imagine the amount and quality of work that goes into these creations. It's the kind of thing you've got to love doing, because money can't adequately compensate the fine craftsman/designer/artist for work that is crazy fine like this.

Hi Kira,

I hear ya. The nice thing about this is every time I see it or play it, I will not only be proud of the major effort that went into, but those shots are from a couple of my favorite communes with Mother Ocean. So I'll have those pleasant thoughts as well.

The personal aspect is rewarding, indeed. Long may you enjoy it!

Hi Kira,

Thank you. I hope to. I was meaning to ask you, was this the first time you tried applying binding on your Ruby project? Or have you had a go at this sort of thing before?

jingle_jangle wrote:Aquabass nearly ready to ship...















It needs a couple of parts--on order from RIC--and it's off to its happy owner. The pickguard is painted in Aqua Pearl.

The inlays were done by Craig Lavin; I did the ebony fretboard and the refinish from a brand new FG V63.

Thats really nice!

I am speechless, this 380/12 conversion project is just stunning ! Kudos to Paul W and Craig Lavin, just a beautiful result, but it also takes someone with an idea and some vision, congrats Tim, enjoy ! This is a really personal one. I remember an LP cover from Joe Walsh - a photo taken him diving, don't try it with this one I think I have to send my 380/12 to Paul for some fine tuning.....

manta wrote:Hi Kira,

Thank you. I hope to. I was meaning to ask you, was this the first time you tried applying binding on your Ruby project? Or have you had a go at this sort of thing before?

The 320 was my second project applying binding. My Les Paul SG project was the first.

Paul, how long did it take to make those inlays?

All glory to the Aquabass.

I didn't do the inlays, Werner...they were done by Craig Lavin, as I mentioned. The guitar was shipped to FL for his work; ditto for the Aquabass from three years back.

The biggest issue in finishing walnut is the grain sealing. I squeegeed epoxy into the grain, and then spent hours and hours sanding the excess off. It has the supposed advantage of not shrinking over time, but there's still some shrink-back (as the photos show), and the 380 will get some additional finish work before I ship it back to Tim.