Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

So I went to take out the original strap buttons on the bass I picked up from Pick of the Ricks to put Dunlops on and noticed that someone had drilled out the hole previously and stuck the strap pin back in with a coating of teflon tape. So now the hole is far too big for the Dunlop screw.

Suggestions? I really REALLY want to have that straplock system on there to match my others.

Why are people so stupid sometimes?

Thanks for any suggestions.

some people are stupid all of the time! The real experts will be along, but I would find a small dowel-ish looking piece of maple and fix it the way I do a hinge screw hole that has gotten too big.

most of us are stupid when it comes to certain topics ...

The Rickenbacker straplok is a modified Schaller strap lock ... instead of a wood screw it has a machine screw ... you have a few choices ... get a set of scaller straplocks and find a larger wood screw to hold it in, or fill the hole with toothpicks and wood glue, or drill out the hole and glue in a wood dowel which you drill out for the correct Rickenbacker part ...

I would use the dunlap straploks ...

Dowel the hole and re-drill. That is the easiest way. I added Dunlops once by drilling out the bottom of the Dunlop buttons large enough to accept a machine screw (one that matches the RIC strap button). No mods to the wood were necessary. The screw heads had to be ground down a bit to fit inside the Dunlop button. The only difficult part is the drilling of the Dunlop button. The metal is pretty hard.

I took it to Bass Emporium. They did a good job on my other oen that had a similar issue.

Thanks guys.

I used the Dunlop strap-locks, and went to Home Depot and bought machine screws that were the same length and thread size as the RIC strap pins then used a belt sander to grind down the size of the screw head to fit inside the strap-lock receiver... It was masterful.

I've always just used match sticks and wood glue to fill holes for screws, replacing the screw when the glue is still wet...
Dowel is much more work. It requires a clean, usually freshly drilled hole for the dowel to fit snuggly. You then need to wait until the glue is dry , and then after all that work, most of the dowel gets drilled away when you re-sink the hole.