Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

As I examine my new 660/12 I notice the D octave and G root strings each rub against the side of the truss rod cover. Is this typical?

It looks like I can rewind these strings on the pegs so the wind is away from the centerline which should reduce or eliminate the rubbing at the expense of increasing the angle through the nut. Is this the way to go, or should I just let them rub?

Ken all is well and normal
http://www.rickresource.com/register/us ... llsize.jpg
in the pic you can see that the above mentioned strings slightly touch the TRC.

Thanks, Scotty - I looked for a few pics but didn't see one that illustrated it as well as that one. I was concerned about breaking strings or damaging the TRC - no worries, then!

No worries.

Mine hits too and when I first got it I had plans to miter and polish the edge. But then the "If it ain't broke..." adage kicked in and I've not thought about it since.

Ken, MID looks great on a 660. You must be thrilled. Have fun!

Winding toward the outsides of the pegs does help and works just fine. A bit of careful trimming and reshaping also work even better if you're up to the task, but it is understandably a bit scary the first time. Polishing is worth the trouble.

So, just hit the edge of the TRC with a Dremel and polishing wheel?

It is funny how I see the shaped truss-rod cover as normal now and I don't even notice it.

kenf wrote:So, just hit the edge of the TRC with a Dremel and polishing wheel?

Back away from that Dremel!

It rotates too fast to work acrylic, and will burn the plexi and probably give you a very uneven edge.

Remove the TRC from the guitar and use either a furniture scraper or an Exacto knife to round off the edge, or some #150 grit sandaper (I prefer aluminum oxide paper--it cuts best). Once it's nicely radiused, you can switch to #600 paper, wetted with water or Windex to get the edge super-smooth. Next, rubbing or polishing compound, Scratch-X, Zymol.

All Rick acoustic TRCs have this done to them...using a furniture scraper and my power buffer, I can do it in about 10 minutes...doing it by hand will take longer but either way, it's worth the effort:





You can also use this method to bevel or radius acrylic pickguards:

Got it - I'll do it at the first string change. The D octave in particular hangs up on the TRC when tuning.

Thanks, Paul!

I don't own a buffer, so I shape and polish the edges of mine by hand. Also, since TRCs are a rare and expensive commodity for us private individual types, I just feel better keeping it away from power tools where mistakes can happen quickly. Shaping is done with a hunk of sandpaper in the 100 grit range wrapped around a block of wood and keeping the edge pretty square. I bevel the edges of my pickguards, but like the look of the more square edges on TRCs (and the way you can read the logo through the edge). Once the shape is reduced, the rest is all polishing and I do it by wet-sanding. I use a whole bunch of grits, but it generally only takes a minute or two per grit, starting with 220, 320, 400, 600 and 1,000 grit paper. Then I switch to Micromesh. The 5" Micromesh disks (made for power sanders) are the best buy, cost-wise, and are tough enough that they will hold up for several projects when hand-wet-sanding. I've done several TRCs, half a dozen sets of pichguards and my entire 2030 bass body with one set and they're still going strong. You can read about them here and if you plan to do much fine sanding, they're well worth the $18 bucks for the set.

http://www.woodcraft.com/product.aspx?P ... ilyID=5232

I don't use a block for the wet sanding. The disks are fairly sturdy and just hand-holding them and keeping them square to the edge will wrap ever so slightly around the sharp corners and smooth them out. I start with their 1500 grit disk and then go all the way up through the set to the 12,000 grit disk. After that, a quick rub with a diaper and a a bit of polishing compound or Scratch-X is all it takes. It probably takes me a half hour to do a TRC, but it's not like I need to be in a hurry. I'd love to do it more often, but buying the guitars that go underneath them seems to be the obstacle.

You can do the same thing on molded TRCs, though the effect is obviously less visually stunning. They are much softer than the plexi models and take less sanding time. Even though it's less obvious, they still look nice with a clean, polished edge and you can reshape them as needed.