Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Who makes the best Ric replacement pickguards? Fabgear or pickguardian? I want a gold ones for my 03 Montezuma Ric 360/6.

HOw about a hot pink metallic finish with a tortoiseshell pickguard? On a 381??

Being a guy I like gold a bit better than pink. But the america's natives could not understand why white men were so obsessive about the yellow metal either.
But it would look mighty nice on my 360 Montezuma. Just not sure who to order from them from or what course I'm gonna take on the Truss Rod Cover yet.

Dan,
I just posted a pic of a gold guard made by Pickguardian on the "TRC sells for the same as my first 1998 cost me!" thread.

Gold looks AWESOME on a Monty Brown. Pickguardian made mine. Love it!!!

Dan, also Pick of the Ricks did my TRC gold too. He has the same shade of gold that Pickguardian uses. Matched perfect. I do believe that Pickguardian does do TRC's too, though.

Here's my Montezuma Brown 381 with gold guards. You're right, Scott.

I made the guards, BTW.

Stunning, Paul!!!

You did a great job Paul. What did you do about the TRC?

This question is asked everytime I re-post the above picture or one like it.

With John Hall's kind permission, I tried laser-engraving a TRC. As long as I was laser-cutting pickguards for my 381 and also my 660-12, I experimented on TRCs as well, made a set for John, and sent them to him for evaluation.

Since my TRCs are obviously non-original and the guitars are genuine, there's no counterfeiting issue here.

I promised John that mine would be the only set, and I would not offer them for sale. As I mentioned before, something like 10% of the TRCs that Rickenbacker gets back for exchange are counterfeits, and many are laughably crude.

Anyway, here's what my non-original 381 TRC looks like. The 660-12 is similar.

The "Rickenbacker" script and the "Made in USA" lettering (look closely!) are both engraved into the acrylic about 1 mm deep from the back side. The laser leaves a nice texture due to the rasterization of the graphic file.

The script was then filled with a wonderful chrome coating made by Alsa Coatings (www.alsacorp.com) that sells for--hold onto your hat--$1200.00/gallon. (I got a sample batch from them for evaluation.)

Then both TRCs (as well as the pickguards) were back-painted with a special color gold that I mixed. I originally matched the Rickenbacker gold, but thought that it looked too greenish to my eye, so I did my own color, which is a shade or two more reddish and looks great on Montezuma Brown.

Here's a close-up of my laser-cut guards on the 660-12. You'll notice how reddish the shadows of the edges look:

By the way, Scoot--I forgot to mention--if Pickguardian makes TRCs, (news to me), they will be in hot water.

A former member of this Forum once published directions on how to counterfeit Rickenbacker TRCs on his website. It was only a few days before it was taken down.

Rickenbacker looks askance at such unauthorized efforts as violation of their "trade dress", with good reason, I might add.

Paul,
No, they don't make the TRC's. I should have been more clear. I think if you ship your TRC, they will paint it with the matching color for the pickguard.

I apologize if my post left the impression that they actually made TRC's.

Tony is a stand up guy, he will not violate any trademarks.

Guys, my wording was a bit harsh. I'm sorry, Tony, if it read like I was being a jerk! Your work is superb. Love the autographed edition in the picture!

I guess what you guys mean applies to the molded relief TRCs. Where the difficulty arises is when someone has one of the silkscreened vintage ones.

I don't wanna vilolate patents. But this is simular to movies. When you get one the first thing you see is that its for home use and not for showing in auditoriums and such.
I paid for my Ric and I just wanna be able to mod it for my use. So if we can figure out a way to make them gold at home for my own use and not the public at large then I don't see how that would be violating a patent