Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hey gang. Let's say, you know, hypothetically, if I happened to have a '66 360/12 with original TR's that was pitching a little too far forward (just enough to bend the neck pu a bit), and I was feeling squirrely, what would I need to do to straighten it out? The neck it self is straight as an arrow, it's just getting pulled too far forward by the string tension.

IIRC, for old school rods, I need to loosen the rods, manually set the neck, then tighten, right? After all the **** I've been through with this guitar I won't really cry if it snaps in half. Right now it's a $2K paperweight with a lousy paint job. At least the guy did a nice refret job on it. But the paint job was a far, far cry from PW/DF quality.

Thanks gang! Cheers, JD

jdogric12aolcom wrote:Hey gang. Let's say, you know, hypothetically, if I happened to have a '66 360/12 with original TR's that was pitching a little too far forward (just enough to bend the neck pu a bit), and I was feeling squirrely, what would I need to do to straighten it out?

A competent luthier well versed in Rickenbacker guitars.

Dog, from what I'm reading in your post I don't think this is a rod issue.

The neck is straight and not bowed, but the entire neck angle has changed...this is the 'curl' condition that you see on some 12-strings from this period.

The most common way to fix it would be a reset IMHO. There are other methods available, such as putting the guitar in a steam press (really) to to adjust the angle of the neck itself in relation to the body. I dunno who can do this, but I know of one person here on the RRF who had it done with positive results.

Thanks guys!

I'm heading over the bay now with a 240V HEAVY DUTY steam iron and wooden mallet now Dog...

If the neck are straight, it aren't rods. It are neck set.

Will it set up OK in terms of bridge height? If so and the only problem is that it's pushing against the neck pickup, surely it would be better to move the pickup slightly - it can't possibly need more than 1/32" or 1/16" at the very worst, which would mean the new screw holes would overlap the old ones and you wouldn't even see it.

I know it's trying to make a right out of two wrongs, but it's so much less work to achieve a practical solution compared to resetting the neck, and if you ever did decide to do that or it became unavoidable, you could return the pickup to its original position without it showing either.

'Fraid not. It's just two hairs and some air away from the baseplate.