Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

My understanding was that all the toasters on very recent ricks are the "scatterwound" variety with 7.4K ohms. But I believe that there are also older "toasters" that have the same covers as the real vintage pups but the same guts as hi-gains.

The hi-gains on my 330 definitely sound different than the 660's toasters, but then again yer talking two completely different guitars.

On the 'buckered 330 issue, I've decided to stick with hi-gains - the sound has grown even more appealing to me lately.

I have heard rumors of these toasters with High-Gain guts and buzzed-off dots from the factory, but never seen any. It is true that the '80s-late '90s toasters, while having true toaster guts, are wound much hotter than the scatterwounds (sometimes as high as 14K). The scatterwounds originated in 1999 and were first used on the 325/12V63 and 450V63/425V63 reissues.

My '92 1997 absolutely rocks, really hot, but my '97 360v64 is much, much weaker in output. Jangles nicely though. They both sound great!

Where's the best place to go to get a vintage toaster for the neck position on my 1980 360/6?

I'm a bit scared of messing with it, but I suppose I could always change it back to its original state.

Is putting in the new pickup ok for someone with basic screwdrivers and a home soldering iron?... or should I pay to have it done by a pro?

Swapping pickups on a Rick is a piece of cake! Just place a towel on the top of the guitar to protect against dripping solder.

Use a pencil soldiering iron rather than a gun with transformer, can weaken magnets if you get too close to the pickup.

So if I were to try to get a "real" toaster pickup, it sounds like I should make sure it is 7.4 ohms or thereabouts.

Unfortunately I'm still looking for the 370. First things first! I was hooked on MB, but now I'm leaning to black (jet glo) and I'd put on black pickguards and black TRC. Dang, thats so cool.

"Just remember, there are no dumb questions... only dumb people" ... so at the risk of sounding dumb....

A 370 is just a 360 with a 3rd pickup, right? So wouldn't it be fairly easy (for a guitar pro) to simply add the 3rd pickup to a 360? I suppose it would require cutting a hole in the body to allow for the wiring.... and would also mean wiring the middle and neck pickups together. But having said that, I would think it would be a pretty straightforward process.

Any comments?

Yup. It also destroys the originality of the axe, for those who care about these things.

that originality thing never bothered me too much since I figure I will keep the Ric for life. I'm the one who painted his pickguards and TRC on a 360 fireglo which (to some) I could see as being sacreligious.... even I couldn't believe I was doing it at the time, but it worked out pretty well. Actually the color I used is not far from the yellow/gold background used on this web site... perhaps a little more on the gold side.

Kent, you're actually looking for a toaster that is around 7.4k ohms, not 7.4 ohms. The k stands for a thousand, so it is really 74000 ohms. Makes a BIG difference in the output of your pickup!

Well, painted guards are easily reversible.

Sorry to nitpick, Greg, but 7.4k ohms is 7400 ohms, not 74000. Still a big difference from 7.4 ohms, either way!

yea..... 7.4k.

>>>>Well, painted guards are easily reversible.

Hmmmm.... I have an admission to make. I once tried to "unpaint" a TRC. I used some paint remover and wound up TOTALLY destroying it... It was so bad that if you didn't know that the raised letters spelled Rickenbacker you wouldn't have been able read it.

I know, I know.... I deserve severe punishment for such desecration.

I woulnd up buying a new one from a store in PA. They probably have the melted one framed on the wall with a sign "What NOT to do to your truss rod cover".

Kent, you're making some fuzzy assupmtions here.

I said "painted guards", not TRCs.

No way would I want to strip the paint off a guard. When I said that, it was from my own experience of swapping the actual guards, not trying to remove enamel paint from plexiglass. As in, I removed the factory white guards from my 381 and replaced them with gold ones that I made, but can, in a half-hour or less, have the guitar back to factory appearance should I ever choose to do this.