Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Paul,

Can you explain the concept of how a "set neck" is attached to the body of a Ric? (I kind of picture a dove-tail that somehow wedges into the body?) I have a 325c58 and I have often marveled at whether the neck and body were perhaps one piece. They fit together so perfectly.

Having strung the guitar, does a set neck become even more stable?

No dovetails here, in the classical/flattop/archtop sense (i.e., the dovetail slides into place at a right angle to the guitar's top).

Instead, the body is routed with a tight-fitting slot for the neck block (an unshaped portion of the neck piece) to slide into place against a "stop ledge" (my term) also routed into the body's neck pocket. Glue is applied to the contact surfaces.

A Rickenbacker neck is quite an interesting engineering concept. It is a beam that reflects two opposing forces on its faces, depending upon how the strings are tensioned and truss rod adjusted. Ideally, the fretboard is flat, and its geometry is thus constant. meaning no buzzing, low, or high spots. This hapens when the strings' normal tendency to pull the neck into a bow, is exactly counteracted by the truss rods acting upon the neck to pull it straight again. Remove string tension, and the truss rod will bow the neck in the opposite direction (back-bow)--a most undesirable turn of events.

I might add that Rick necks have no "set angle" like others. The string clearance is strictly a product of neck relief and bridge and nut height.

Stringing a guitar does not act to stabilize the neck, except to compress it into its slot in the body more firmly. Depending on the configuration of the neck/body joint, it could lock things up a bit or loosen them. And where this joint is concerned, a little means a lot.

Paul,

Thank you for:

"Remove string tension, and the truss rod will bow the neck in the opposite direction (back-bow)--a most undesirable turn of events"

When I bought my 360/12 the seller was determined to ship the guitar sans string tension.

I was horrified and could not type fast enough to get my point across about how to ship my guitar without it sustaining damage.

Yikes. Some people should just never own a quality instrument should they?

Thank you, Paul. You're one heck of a fantastic technical writer.

I would love to see how that slot in the body looks. If you ever have any photos or drawings of that, it would be interesting to see them. Thank you.

There are two good (if small) photos of the body laid open with neck slot in plain view, on this page of Rickenbacker's factory web site:

http://www.rickenbacker.com/factory_woodshop.asp

This, of course, shows a hollow-bodied Rick; the solid-bodied guitars are of neck-through construction. For some good photos on how this is done, see Dale Fortune's photo essay on building a neck-through solid body guitar in the Vibrola section of this Forum.