Anatomy Of A Rickenbacker Bass Part 2
Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 11:41 pm
Anatomy of a Rickenbacker Bass Week 2: Construction
Last week I discussed the types of woods used by Rickenbacker. This week I will talk about how those pieces of wood were cut and assembled to make your bass. It is important here to note that there are no pegs, biscuits, or tongues securing any of the wooden parts of a Rickenbacker. Wood glue and simple joints alone hold all the pieces in place.
I probably should have covered this in the previous article but wood is a highly variable and somewhat unpredictable building material. Care must be taken to prepare it properly. Before any piece is cut to the final shape the wood must be dried and aged. If “green” wood is planed and joined it will likely not be true to shape as it ages. Good builders will take steps to make sure the wood is ready to be used. Warping and cupping wood can utterly ruin a guitar. Because of this, the wood shop has to be particular about which woods are used for a given part or even used at all. Selecting the best woods is really where the build begins. Despite best efforts, marginal wood sometimes finds its way into a new guitar. This happens to all makers and on all grades of instruments. Fortunately the RIC warranty covers the wood for 5 years – for the original owner.
Most Rickenbacker bass bodies have three distinct parts, the upper and lower wings and the neck slab. I say most because this does not apply to the set-neck 4000s and 4001Ss or the 4005, and the 4080 which are all technically in the 4000 series but not constructed in the same way. Whatever the age of the bass, the body wings and neck slab were made separately and joined later in the build. Let's start with the wings. Except for the 4004 sub-series, the wings are solid maple. The 4004C has walnut body wings and the later 4004s have a sandwich of maple and walnut. Some rare 4004Ciis have a two-piece wing where the top is maple and the back is walnut. Whatever the wood, the body wings are what give your bass most of its distinctive shape and by far the most identifying attribute is the cresting waves on the horns. These days the wings are cut out using a computer controlled milling machine that can produce identical parts all day long. In the early 60's before the use of templates, the body wings were cut out by hand and varied quite a bit in shape. Except for the different necks produced in recent years, Rickenbackers made since '96 or so vary little in any aspect. Some people feel that the freehand way was best because the small variations make each instrument unique. My '63 does not look exactly like any other early 60's Rickenbacker bass I have seen. This is a valid point of view and I agree the variations are cool but I wonder how long the backlog would be if Rickenbacker still cut them out by hand.
Here is the body of my '63. The gap between the top edge of the pickguard and the binding varies greatly on these early basses because of the free hand cutting method. Mine is particularly wide. On some the guard comes right to the edge of the body.
Body wings from 1961 or so on to the present are 1 1/4” thick. The general proportions have not changed much from that time. The early 4000s are somewhat larval in appearance with their thicker wings and stubby horns. It took a few years for the design elements to coalesce into the shape we know today.
Unless you have been on a factory tour or seen some old brochures you probably don't know that the binding is applied to body wings before they are attached to the neck. This ensures a tight fit between the end of the binding and sides of the neck. After the binding is applied (a subject for another time) and the flat edge of the wing is cleaned up, it is ready to be joined to the neck slab.
The Rickenbacker bass neck slab has changed several times since the first 4000 was made back in '57. Always showing the wide grain on the top and back, the first ones were rectangular one-piece mahogany which a year later became walnut, then a few years after settled on maple. Starting off at nearly 1 1/2” thick, the neck slab is rough-cut to the basic dimensions. The section that supports the fingerboard is left a bit thicker than the the section that makes up the body. About this core is the finished bass is built. The most drastic change to the neck slab happened in '72 when the shedua stripe was added and the size of the headstock was scaled down – the headstock wings having been reduced to mere slivers. I have to think this change was an attempt to combat warping and/or dead spots (or as they are more politely called, less prominent notes) and not just an aesthetic improvement. Tbough the shedua stripe does nicely underscore the fact that the neck runs from head to tail. At some point during the preparation of the neck slab the truss channels are cut. For a long time the truss channels were made an a shaper table. Evidence of this remains on many 60's basses where the truss channels continue south under the guard for a few inches. This is perhaps why the vintage guards are cut right up the the treble surround. A more precise method was employed in the 70s'. Today CNCs do the job. The old style rods required only a flat-bottom slot be cut. The new style rods require a curved one so a few more steps are required before they can be installed. Once the fingerboard (fingerboards will have their own feature later) is installed and fretted the neck shape can be cut. The rough cut was once done on a band saw then refined on a shaper. These days it is all in a CNC program. With either method, sanding and shaping are required.
A RIC employee shapes a 4003 neck slab. Note the neck pickup route is already cut.
To make the three piece 4001 neck, a maple board was ripped down the center lengthwise and the two pieces rotated so the newly exposed edge grain faced upward. That is why the grain on a 4001 neck slab is not top grain but a edge grain. On some I have seen, one of the cut pieces of maple was flipped lengthwise so the top end of one half matched up with the bottom end of the other and vice versa. This is probably done to counter any potential warp or twist. The shedua section was placed in between the two maple pieces and all three pieces were glued together to make the neck slab. The neck slab has two holes drilled into the bottom side to allow for the treble pickup wire and the ground wire to the tail piece.
Edge grain detail on a 4002.
Initially, the neck slab is cut longer than it will be in the finished bass and its squared-off end actually sticks out past the body wings only to be trimmed and shaped later in the build. I don't know when it started but on most 4000 series basses there are four small steel pins (nails with their heads cut off) pressed into pre-drilled holes used to align and secure the body wings during glue-up. There are two , one on either side of the neck slab, placed about an inch back of the cutaway and the other two are just behind the treble pickup route. Just a guess but I believe the two pins closest to the neck also serve to prevent the shearing force of the string pull from breaking the neck-body laminations. Glue -up is done after the neck and headstock are completed and involves applying a thin layer of wood glue to the sides of the neck slab and the flat sides of the body wings, aligning the pins and holes then pressing the wood together with clamps. The pressure from the clamps forces the glue into the pores of the wood creating a bond stronger than the wood itself.
The red circle below shows the location of one of the two steel pins on this upper wing from my '86 4003S/5. The other pin on this wing is located on the same line just aft of the treble pickup route.
Last week I discussed the types of woods used by Rickenbacker. This week I will talk about how those pieces of wood were cut and assembled to make your bass. It is important here to note that there are no pegs, biscuits, or tongues securing any of the wooden parts of a Rickenbacker. Wood glue and simple joints alone hold all the pieces in place.
I probably should have covered this in the previous article but wood is a highly variable and somewhat unpredictable building material. Care must be taken to prepare it properly. Before any piece is cut to the final shape the wood must be dried and aged. If “green” wood is planed and joined it will likely not be true to shape as it ages. Good builders will take steps to make sure the wood is ready to be used. Warping and cupping wood can utterly ruin a guitar. Because of this, the wood shop has to be particular about which woods are used for a given part or even used at all. Selecting the best woods is really where the build begins. Despite best efforts, marginal wood sometimes finds its way into a new guitar. This happens to all makers and on all grades of instruments. Fortunately the RIC warranty covers the wood for 5 years – for the original owner.
Most Rickenbacker bass bodies have three distinct parts, the upper and lower wings and the neck slab. I say most because this does not apply to the set-neck 4000s and 4001Ss or the 4005, and the 4080 which are all technically in the 4000 series but not constructed in the same way. Whatever the age of the bass, the body wings and neck slab were made separately and joined later in the build. Let's start with the wings. Except for the 4004 sub-series, the wings are solid maple. The 4004C has walnut body wings and the later 4004s have a sandwich of maple and walnut. Some rare 4004Ciis have a two-piece wing where the top is maple and the back is walnut. Whatever the wood, the body wings are what give your bass most of its distinctive shape and by far the most identifying attribute is the cresting waves on the horns. These days the wings are cut out using a computer controlled milling machine that can produce identical parts all day long. In the early 60's before the use of templates, the body wings were cut out by hand and varied quite a bit in shape. Except for the different necks produced in recent years, Rickenbackers made since '96 or so vary little in any aspect. Some people feel that the freehand way was best because the small variations make each instrument unique. My '63 does not look exactly like any other early 60's Rickenbacker bass I have seen. This is a valid point of view and I agree the variations are cool but I wonder how long the backlog would be if Rickenbacker still cut them out by hand.
Here is the body of my '63. The gap between the top edge of the pickguard and the binding varies greatly on these early basses because of the free hand cutting method. Mine is particularly wide. On some the guard comes right to the edge of the body.
Unless you have been on a factory tour or seen some old brochures you probably don't know that the binding is applied to body wings before they are attached to the neck. This ensures a tight fit between the end of the binding and sides of the neck. After the binding is applied (a subject for another time) and the flat edge of the wing is cleaned up, it is ready to be joined to the neck slab.
The Rickenbacker bass neck slab has changed several times since the first 4000 was made back in '57. Always showing the wide grain on the top and back, the first ones were rectangular one-piece mahogany which a year later became walnut, then a few years after settled on maple. Starting off at nearly 1 1/2” thick, the neck slab is rough-cut to the basic dimensions. The section that supports the fingerboard is left a bit thicker than the the section that makes up the body. About this core is the finished bass is built. The most drastic change to the neck slab happened in '72 when the shedua stripe was added and the size of the headstock was scaled down – the headstock wings having been reduced to mere slivers. I have to think this change was an attempt to combat warping and/or dead spots (or as they are more politely called, less prominent notes) and not just an aesthetic improvement. Tbough the shedua stripe does nicely underscore the fact that the neck runs from head to tail. At some point during the preparation of the neck slab the truss channels are cut. For a long time the truss channels were made an a shaper table. Evidence of this remains on many 60's basses where the truss channels continue south under the guard for a few inches. This is perhaps why the vintage guards are cut right up the the treble surround. A more precise method was employed in the 70s'. Today CNCs do the job. The old style rods required only a flat-bottom slot be cut. The new style rods require a curved one so a few more steps are required before they can be installed. Once the fingerboard (fingerboards will have their own feature later) is installed and fretted the neck shape can be cut. The rough cut was once done on a band saw then refined on a shaper. These days it is all in a CNC program. With either method, sanding and shaping are required.
A RIC employee shapes a 4003 neck slab. Note the neck pickup route is already cut.
Edge grain detail on a 4002.
The red circle below shows the location of one of the two steel pins on this upper wing from my '86 4003S/5. The other pin on this wing is located on the same line just aft of the treble pickup route.
I look forward to more in the future.