Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Yep, Nuts - i never got around to posting this when i first got my 02' 4003 but does anyone know why RIC leaves the nut slots cut so high? The action on my bass was way high because of this, i had to deepen the slots a considerable ammount (as well as widen them to accept a "standard" guaged set) once deepened i had a lot of excess material to shave from the top of the nut.

I just found it odd as i have never seen basses from other manufacturers like this.

Owen,you cant talk about shaving your nuts,its the day before Christmas.

haha

here we go again!


So you can grove it if you use thicker strings...

I would guess that the factory nut depth is probably just a starting point and that the player is to decide what to do with it from there. How much extra nut material is there?


The general rule for nuts is that the slots should only be about half as deep as the diameter of the string. On many older Ricks, the slots are so deep that the entire string is well below the top of the nut. My theory on this is, because 70's basses have more or less straight heads with little to no backward canting. There would tend to be very little down force of the string against the nut. This geometry would cause rattles and a tendancy for the string to pop out of the nut when struck hard. The deep slots kept the string from popping out. All of my Ricks from the mid 80's on have angled heads and all of their nuts have shallow slots that are about half the diameter of the strings. My 70's Ricks and all of the 70's Ricks I owned back then have straight heads and very deep nut slots. I suspect that the 1970's resizing of the 4000 series head was a way to address the problem and reduce the chance of the head tipping forward (as has happened on many 60's basses). The large headstock reappeared about the time RIC angled the head.

The strings were buried in slots. the slots were wayyyyy high. I know what you mean about a starting point but what % of players are going to know that they must recut the nut to get a good action. Surely a bass should come with a "normally" cut nut? Never seen a rickenbacker guitar with a high nut.

The nuts on all my Ricks are tall and the strings are fully "enclosed" by them, from '67 through '04.

Jeff im assuming your more recent basses had high action at the nut (shallow high cut slots)

I did have to file them down a bit, but better they should start out too high than too low.

I just played a new Yamaha TRB 1005 at my local GC, and all the nut slots were cut so low the strings were resting on the first fret!

Are we making comparisons to the way other companies setup their nuts?

Might the Rickenbacker nut not be setup to allow for the correct Rickenbacker action?

After all, while other companies suggest a slight relief in their necks to achieve proper action, John Hall says that the correctly adjusted Rickenbacker bass neck is dead straight! Considering Rickenbacker's terrific track record as far as quality control is concerned, I doubt that these nuts are just "in the ballpark".

Correct action is a sum of nut, bridge and neck adjustments altogether, isn't it?

I guess Owen didn't have much to say.

There was an article in BP a couple years ago by Anthony Jackson regarding setup, in which he touted flat relief and slightly higher nut slots.

I am surprised to hear that yours is so deep Owen. Can you post a pic? Jeff, yours are deep too? I was just looking at my '89 Blackstar, '93 4004C, and '02 4003S/5. All have "proper" slot depths. Admittedly, I am drawing conclusions from a relatively small population. My V63 rattles on the open E string but I think someone cut the nut before I bought it. I am the third owner.

Ted my 91 4003 i bought used has a perfectly cut nut and bridge saddles (however it could of course been adjusted before i owned it) The nut on my 02 was cut so high that it was almost painful to play in first position and the strings were buried in the plastic as jeff described. the bridge saddles had completly V shaped slots which i thought was strange.

Here in london i have looked at the small number of 4003's for sale in denmark street, all are recent yrs, 03, 04 ,05....they seemed to have a more standard slot depth but the strings were still totally buried in plastic.

Cant post a pic as i took it upon myself to reshape all the slots and trim away the excess plastic months ago. I had to do something otherwise id have been stuck with RIC strings forever haha