Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Been noticing that my '86 Ruby 4003 has been getting an increasing amount of buzz on the G string around the 15th fret or so. Used it Saturday and the upper few notes were unplayable. Taking a closer look the cause is clear - the fingerboard is starting to seperate from the neck up there. I'll be bringing to Michael Dolan, my local luthier, soon but am wondering if anyone has seen this happen before? If so, how difficult a fix was it?

Thanks,

Tim

PS - is it just me or all ALL ricks recently skyrocketing in price? $1800 for a Laredo, $5000 for DCM???

To answer the PS, yes EVERYTHING is skyrocketing...by the way, is your Ruby a BT bass?

Jaymi,

Yes, it does have BT. Beautiful combo, IMO>

Skyrockets in price...bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww...Afternoon delight...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafternoon delight!

These things happen, the causes can be many, and without seeing it in person I can only speculate. Was it knocked over causing a fracture in the glue joint, left in a car where the temp. caused the glue to soften resulting in separation or possible truss rod tightening, to much pressure at the upper frets. The repair can be anywhere from injecting glue into the area and clamping up to removal of the entire fingerboard, resurface both the neck and fingerboard, then reglue it, level frets and readjust T-rods and intonation....Your are headed in the right direction..Dolan has excellent experience and will be fair and honest..

Dale,

Thanks for chiming in. No reason why this happened. I don't recall any of those things happening, but then again I'm not the origial owner. Only thing I've had to fix was a rattling truss rod.

I'll post how it all comes out.

I used to have two of them Tim....I wonder if that one is one of those from me??

Tim..It may have been that before you got the Bass someone over tightened the rods in an attempt to adjust neck/action and in doing so they separated the upper part of the fingerboard ever so slightly and over a period of time it has worsened. Every one I've worked on has had some issue with adjusting the T-rods . The rattling T-rods is a sign of to much space in the channel that the rods lay in, this will be from the fingerboard separated and/or loose rods.
If it were in my hands I would do the least evasive repair by injecting high tech glue into the separated area then clamping it. I've repaired many this way.

Tim can you post a pic?

Here you go, Jaymi. It's (obviously) the one on the right.

okay, Z what? the one I had was December 86...

Jaymi -

I'll try to check the serial numbers when I get home. Mine came from a seller in the Seattle area. Where are you?

Nashville, TN but I had 2 of these and I am just curious to see where it went..

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM Darkstars

Update:

Got my bass back from Dolan's yesterday. He glued the fingerboard, did some upper fret work, and restrung it. 900% better. All is good once again.

Jaymi - you asked about the SN:

A0 9952

- Tim