Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Paul,

Nice guitar btw, how is the armrest attached?

It seems to be a common attachment on many Gretsch guitars from way back, but Paul's the Gretsch expert...

I have a green alligator skin armrest on my custom 'PW' Duo Jet. Apart from the functionality, it looks fantastic!!

Howard, how about a pic or three of your duo jet?

Well, John..... I would if I had them. I think they are on a laptop at Brian's home. I thought I saved Paul's email that had the final pics but I'm ******** if I can find it!

Perhaps Paul may see this post and help me out.

David, thanks for the kind words. I've just gotten back from a business trip. I didn't have much time to check out the forum for a few days.
...I did have time for a little fun as you can see here. Cheers to everyone on the forum, RIC and it's 75th anniversary!

This was the first (and by far the smallest) of the Coors samples.

If the neck is dead flat (down the length of the fretboard), then the action rise should be linear down the lenght of the fretboard. Sounds like you may have a bit of upbow?

After drawing a diagram of what you describe, you have back bow. That refers to the neck bending in a convex manner - where the nut end and the body end are below the middle. An 18" straight edge laid across all the frets would show a hump in the middle, where either/both ends of the straight edge are up in the air. If this is the case, as I suspect, you would need to loosen the truss rod nuts to bring the nut end of the fingerboard towards the front of the instrument. 1/4 turn is a lot at one time. After this amount, retune and check. If it needs more, I would wait till the next day to tweak another 1/4 turn.

From what you are saying about the action, this seems to be the case. Draw it out on paper and you will see. Make a straight line for the string, then make a parallel line for most of it then have it angle away from the string. That should represent the action being higher after the 12th fret, and show the neck having a backwards bend.

To answer your armrest question...well, I did, David. Look in my posts on the previous page.

If your neck is dead straight and you were to lay the guitar on its back on a surface plate, the neck should register at the same height within about .005" all along its length, and from side to side, too. Although I say .005", you can still check this by laying it on a countertop or very flat tabletop--preferably granite or Formica. Put some books on top to hold it motionless, and check the height with a steel rule or scale. I usually measure to the seam between the fretboard and the maple neck, on each neck side.

Since few older Ricks do, this is where the adjustment needs to be done.

If the neck has substantial rise (the nut end is higher than the body end)--say .080-.125 or even more, it will need resetting, since the only way to bring the action down would be to dial in some compensatory back bow, and this is really tricky and only a very temporary solution.

Oh, I missed that one. Rampant dullimia, you know...

Armrests are commercially available from vendors such as StewMac and Luthiers' Mercantile. They are wood or metal. I have a Gretsch Jet to which the previous (hack) owner attached a metal banjo armrest. Doesn't look half bad, actually. The wooden ones look OK on natural flattop acoustics and very little else...

The one on the Kantner guitar (which I'm fitting to all the acoustics I'm building) is a piece of laser-cut 1/8" acrylic with the edges radiused and polished, and which is back-painted gold to match the TRC and pickguard.

Stop whinging.

Your strings are "higher" at the last fret because God made them that way.

Seriously, The geometry of a healthy Rickenbacker guitar, once the neck is straight and it is determined that it is parallel to the body plane, is entirely dependent on two things: The distance from string to fretboard at the nut (the calculation of nut height minus nut slot depth) and bridge height as adjusted.

Slightly more fretboard clearance at the last fret (especially on a bass) is OK. On a guitar it is a natural consequence of "falloff", which is the extra relief given to the last three or four frets when the frets are surfaced.

Theoretically, there is no reason why your bass wouldn't play perfectly well with absolutely no difference in string clearance between the first and last frets. But in real life, YMMV.

Lower your bridge and see how it plays.

And stop obsessing, David! You're beginning to worry me...

Joey, you look like you live a charmed life LOL.

LOL...no, that's just the look of a guy that's about to get several samples of free beer at the Coor's brewery.

There are degrees of obsession, David, LOL.

We've both got symptoms of what I would say is degree 8 2/3.