Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

If not, I'm sure Brian would let us use his LK..you know, throw the bulbs inside the carvings...staple some wires on...won't be toooooooo messy...

I'm not a collector and only took one college class but I'm also not a complete imbecile....

Whaddya mean? I was being nice...coulda suggested tons of routing but, spared the time end expense by using a staple gun...

Ya know what...I'm gonna put in a call to Mike Parks, have him send me #4 and use that one...

The LK will always haunt me because I wasn't aware when it was offered, and probably wouldn't have ordered it as I'm not that into Lemmy...funny thing is, more recently after salivating over the craftsmanship of the bass, and hearing so much more Motorhead on satellite radio...I would have killed to order one.

Hey Brian, I don't mind you gigging with your LK..but staple gun and routing? I have to think that's out of the question.

I would think a "carcass" like the one Dale just put a neck on would be a good candidate for routing out the top area and putting the leds around then cut the plastic to fit. You'd need to add extra leds and an interface circuit to pick up the pup signals, but it is all doable.

Just my two cents: I looked at the links provided as well as some other web sites, and an LED version looks feasible. I'd recommend anyone thinking of actually constructing one to use some scrap wood for a prototype before carving up a real guitar ... (I actually have thought about using a 620 ...)

Gee, I happen to have three bodies for my 2030 - the original, the bound one that I use and the first one that I built, which isn't bound. It's just sitting up in the attic gathering dust and routing some holes in it wouldn't be a problem. It would make a pretty cool lightshow.....hmmmmmmmm....

DOOOO it!!!

Making the full-face light plate isn't a problem as I normally make my own pickguards. The routing has lots of possibilities since nearly the entire front is solid and the control cavity is on the back. If needed, a battery box could always be dropped into the back side as well. The wiring and getting the the lights to work is the part where I'm pretty clueless. At least there wouldn't be any risk of screwing up a perfectly good Rickenbacker since it's a spare body. Notice that unlike Paul and Dale, my "shop" looks a hell of a lot like a Black & Decker Workmate out in the driveway.....

there ya go!

Go for it Todd!

That's the beauty of the $20 toy; the electronics are there, you just strip out the light circuit and interface to the audio from the pups. You could even add extra leds to those there. The "light organ" part is in the toy.

I also wondered about mixing in some fiber-optic stuff under the faceplate to move light from LED's out to other spots. This could get really crazy, really fast without proper adult supervision (or a threatening letter from RIC legal). Did anybody see the proper plastic on that Tap Plastics website? I looked, but didn't see anything close. I need a 3000 as I've been looking for one to turn into a short-scale eight-string anyway. Might as well make one that glows.

Todd, the 3000 neck won't take the tension of eight strings. It barely takes the tension of five with the additional B string's tension at only around 38 pounds.

Todd, I think that your fiber optic idea has a lot of merit (one LED per color, distributed to many points), but I've seen a multi-LED example on the web, so I think that it would be perhaps an easier model for an initial project.

Two words: DO IT!