Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Pickguardian conversion guard, RIHS surround. With the horseshoe hitting the rout wall away from the guard. Won't fit. Ideas? Why is this so hard?!

The guard needs to be trimmed away at the bottom to fit your bass, and the corner mounting hole re-drilled. Send it back to Tony with a paper pattern showing the hole location and the edge of your guard.

Thanks Paul. Complication - the pickup surround holes - none line up with any of the existing holes. I was waiting to drill those until the guard came, to locate it next to the guard, but then this. Also, the top "tab" of the surround is longer than the standard surround, thus the guard overlap and the holes not aligning.

Should I just center the pickup and surround in the routed opening, centering the magnet poles under the strings, then measure from the neck to the surround edge and contact Tony? What would be the best or proper way to locate all this? W W JJ D??

I think I'd make a stiff paper or mylar pattern for the entire guard and keep fiddling with it until it was perfect - and then send it to Tony. It looks like the neck pickup is not centered on the strings (more toaster slot hanging off the G-side than the E-side). As for the bridge pickup area, if the guard is cut to precisely fit around the pickup surround with matching curves and angles everywhere it will look great. If not, it looks very wrong. Any and every place that there is plexi next to chrome, the space between them, whether you make it 1/4" or almost nothing, needs to be the same, including that curve at the front lower corner of the pickup.

John, it will be looking sweet when you get the pickguard shaped correctly.

Todd, thanks for responding. I am not sure the toaster is not centered, I will look when I get home tonight. The toaster is a press fit into the opening, too tight to adjust with the screws. I was so concentrated on the pickup surround and guard issue I didn't look at the toaster alignment.

I want my surround and guard to fit like this:
I wish I could get a tracing of a RIC C64 guard. I have the part number but when putting it into the Boutique, it says "At present time, Rickenbacker does not have this product available for purchase."

Thanks, Joey. I've had the pickup surround for a couple weeks now and it is killing me not having it mounted up, but since I will be drilling holes, I only want to make 4, if you know what I mean.

Todd's nailed it. Make a pattern, and send along with your notes, back to Tony, who is equipped to work acrylic. Acrylic can be tricky and is quite tough to work if you don't have the right tools. I'd have it made to fit the holes on your bass, and would not drill any extra holes if at all possible. Keep it clean!

When I had Tony make this pickguard I left the bass with him; I happened to be going to Columbus so I brought the bass with me.

teb wrote:...It looks like the neck pickup is not centered on the strings (more toaster slot hanging off the G-side than the E-side)...

It may be parallax issues, but the photograph makes it look like the Horseshoe is off center as well.

Well, the toaster is indeed off center. Thanks Todd. The horsey has the pole magnets centered on the strings, so any look of being off would be parallax. Now I need time to address this....

Nothing wrong with those off centered toasters John. My 69 4001 is the same.

Just makes it a little more authentic!

You know, Andy, I never really looked that close. After reading your post, I looked at the 4001 with the early high gains and it too is physically off-center, though the pole button heads are centered under the strings. All of my 4001/3 basses are off-center by .05". Interesting.

Well, I gave up on the Pickguardian guard. This is how things turned out:
Don't look under the guard or the surround! One hole lined up.... The guard holes and shape line up with my '75 4001 pickguard.

For what it's worth, the toaster on my C64S is also slightly skewed towards the G string side.

Standard for the line?

I wonder if this has anything to do with the slightly weaker response on the E string when the toaster is solo'd...?

Hmmmmmmmm...