Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hey all,

I have recently bought and recieved my brand new 2008 4003 in Maplego and im incredibly impressed by this amazingly crafted instrument. I cannot express how pleased I am to finally have such a sought after guitar. After a few days of playing non-stop I noticed a little fret buzz on mostly the E and A strings on frets 1 through 5-6. I do not do any of my own adjustments as I have a regular luthier, but he's backed up for about 3 weeks and I have a gig coming up and i'd like to play my Ric as it should be.

Can anybody help guide me through taking away some of this fret buzz without making the action incredibly high? Also, does anybody have spec's to how high the strings should be at the 12th fret etc? I'm using Stock strings straight from the Factory.

Any help is greatly appreciated
Thanks,

Matt

I could start with the only thing I can really contribute...

Is your neck dead straight? There should be no bow at all, back or front. Rick necks are meant to be flat. That's step 1.

There is a tiny amount of bow

Ok. Well, I'll stop now, but I believe I've heard Paul and Dale (and the owners manual) state that the neck should be "dead flat"

Here's what the owners manual says

Due to their extreme
adjustability you may prefer to
adjust a RIC neck almost dead
straight depending on the playing
action preferred.

Thanks for the help so far, i'll take it to the pro to do the neck adjustments when the time comes.

I mostly want to know the averege measurement for the string height though

With a bow in the neck, and still having fret noise at the low frets 1-6, I can think of three things causing it. First, fret the E string at the first and last frets, and see what gap you have between the frets and the string, and if it is consistent. Do this also for the G string side, and see if it is the same as the E side. Ideally they should be the same, flat and JUST touching all frets, but if you have a bit of bow, raising the E side of the bridge can work till you get to your usual setup guy. If there is a difference in the amount of bow side to side, then all you can do (if you don't want to turn truss rod nuts) is raise the E/A side of the bridge only till the buzz is acceptable. You could also have the nut for the E and A strings cut too low - doubtful from the factory but if a setup has been done, a possibility - again a quick fix would be raise the E side of the bridge. Lastly, there COULD be a warp in the neck around the 1-6 frets, verified with the first/last fretting exercise, which could be from the wood OR the rods being highly curved and then flipped in the truss rod channel. I had a 4003S like that. I really doubt this is what it is. My guess is a full setup will get you there.

With a hand 1/4" driver, it is not that hard adjusting the rods and setting up the rest after. You should learn how to do this.

Sounds like the rods are just a little tight causing some back bow . She just needs a tweek .

I've had 2 factory-new Rics(a 4003 FG and a 360 Mid) go from flat to bowed over a few months time.Perhaps they needed to settle in.Re adjustment was easy on the bass, but the guitar required me to get a deep socket as there was more threads exposed on the bass side truss rod than would fit in my nut driver.Also, an easy adjustment.
My first Ric, a 370-12RM kept a dead straight neck for many years, until I installed Pyramid flats on it.