Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

johnnysain wrote:

grazioso wrote:.....to bend the neck into desired shape while holding your guitar between your legs and tighten up the nuts with 1/4 inch driver...

....which nuts?

both

Spike- wrote:Okay, here are the pictures.

first of all it is quite normal that unplugged rickenbacker or any guitar has some buzz when it is setup for low low super low action...and the buzz is controlled by your picking hand if you watch some famous pickers they had fairly high action and great control of their right hand as well..

looking at your first picture i would guess that the bass side rod needs to come loose a bit 1/4 (to 1/2) a turn anticlockwise. you may have to take additional 1/4 turn of the tension off the treble side rod too since these rods are such interactive toys... and they impact each other ...

another approach would be complete "reset": take the strings off and take all the tension off the neck by loosening both the rods and let it sit for a while - a week..or so.. that will let the wood to get closer to its original form...than take good ruler and check for uneven frets, divots, loose ones etc... check the zero fret (aka nut) slots.....than snug up the rods... string it up... tune to pitch... and than proceed with relief adjustments as described in that link i posted before...bridge adjustments ....and finally octave adjustments as well.... bass or guitars no big difference with this type of the rod...the important part is NOT to use the rod to bring the tension up, the rod is made to hold the neck in the position after it was formed there ...if you crank up the rod without holding it in the right position by hand you can pop the fingerboard off and it can happen right at the headstock or in the middle too...it will find the weakest point and that is where it's going to pop...so caution.

if you don't feel comfortable doing it than send it to someone...it's much better than doing it wrong ...