Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I have two 72s both with newer tailpieces ,a vintage tailpiece without a bridge that fits.

So i picked up an all parts tailpiece to experiment on to cut the slit in the mute area,i used a dremel with a cutting disk and cut the slit through the metal,it worked great looks like a v or c tailpiece.

Now i can preform surgery on the newer Ric tailpieces.
I can also fill and re-chrome the extra screw holes. Being that the newer tailpieces aren't as strong[as the original vintage tailpieces] and prone to lift i will leave that alone.

the real Ric mute will fit in the allparts tailpiece ...

The slit....

why stop there?

LOL

Kenneth, how do you go about filling the two extra screw holes? I think if RIC would just eliminate those two holes and put the two holes in the rear like the 4003/5 tailpieces, it would clean it up a bit visually while actually fixing the lifting problem. Actually, the present DIE CAST(I capped that just for you J.H)tailpieces are substantially stronger but the break angle of the strings at the rear of the tailpiece is steeper on the later units which imparts more vertical pull on it, causing it to lift.

You mean "lift and separate"?

I was going to braze them up,It would be much cleaner if they attach a plate to the bottom of the whole tailpiece and make two screw holes that are accessible through the string holes.This would look much cleaner plus hold the tail down.

Actually if you boxed in the rear section on the tailpiece you could run four screws through the string holes holding the tail down.Thus no screws would show and it would be stronger.My next project...