Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Here’s an interesting experience my lady & I had the other day. I called around local music stores to see if they had calipers to gauge the strings. Of course, they don't do that kind of thing out here in the outer reaches of the San Francisco Bay - after all, it's too progressive! I was told by one of the Mom & Pops music stores to go to a bicycle shop, as they use micrometers to calibrate spokes. So, I called my local bike dealer and told them what I needed and the guy suggested I bring the basses in. We walked into the bike shop a couple of hours later, the patrons were especially shocked and quite dumbfounded as were the owners and employees - why would two people walk into a bike shop with guitars in hand? "Right Train, Wrong Track!" There was no patience for weirdness...right? They're too busy and to boot it's a BIKE shop...until I explained to them that I had called earlier about the procedure that was about to take place. That's when the employers and employees chilled a little bit. They still didn't want anything to do with the string gauging experiment until I opened up the Ric case after I had gauged my Ibanez 5 string. The repair guy took one glance and knew right away it was a Ric. He didn’t even have to see the entire bass. He knew immediately. The same guy stopped dead in his work tracks to come over and get a closer look. The entire store including the patrons dropped everything to take the time to admire the handiwork of the Ric. (No time/too busy…huh!?) They were so taken by it that by the time we left we were under a barrage of third degrees. There’s a new Blues Band in town… Similar experiences anyone?

Pretty cool! I've been in far more bike shops than guitar shops in my life, but never with a guitar...

Nice!

Rics have a tendency to have that effect on people. Back when I used to gig, I remember a significant number of people coming up later to talk about their Ric, after seeing mine (or just admiring). I guess it's just one of those things----it's rare to see em "in the wild," and when other owners see one, they recognize something unique about the instrument and it's owner.

You certainly can't blame the workers. A thing of beauty is a beautiful thing to behold.

I noticed too that my ricks have a way of breaking the ice wherever I take them.

But not always. I had an incident where my 320 was a bit off-putting: I showed up at a jam with some new cats who looked at me like I was trying to one-up them. One whiff of that vibe and it turned into a very short session for me - I was outta there pronto.

collin wrote:

.....they recognize something unique about the instrument and it's owner.

Collin, Is this Ric Superiority Syndrone

It's not really a syndrome, it's more of a fact. Rick owners are superior...

Ask somebody about calipers at a Mom and Pop music store, and they think of bicycles...as in handbrake calipers, I'd imagine. I'm surprised nobody has made this connection?

Go to any machine shop and they can measure your string gauge. Music is, after all, a type of engineering. I was once told a story by a guitarist who worked for a major weapons manufacturer long ago. They had an impossible time pulling apart a fuselage for a type of missile...no matter what tools or technique they tried they could not get the snug fitting parts to pull apart. Finally, John came up with a solution. Use a bunch of wires attached equally spaced around the perimeter of said fuselage with guitar tuners and started to tuned them all to the same pitch....When they finally tensioned the last wire to the same pitch as the others...the fuselage popped appart just fine without any effort.

Was it dop "F" tuning?

Bighouse wrote:Go to any machine shop and they can measure your string gauge. Music is, after all, a type of engineering. I was once told a story by a guitarist who worked for a major weapons manufacturer long ago. They had an impossible time pulling apart a fuselage for a type of missile...no matter what tools or technique they tried they could not get the snug fitting parts to pull apart. Finally, John came up with a solution. Use a bunch of wires attached equally spaced around the perimeter of said fuselage with guitar tuners and started to tuned them all to the same pitch....When they finally tensioned the last wire to the same pitch as the others...the fuselage popped appart just fine without any effort.

Yup. When all you've got is guitar parts, everything looks like guitar repair. The other day I was tuning my Mazda...it ran best in "open G".

I worked in a music store in Chicago PT. It wasn't all that unusual for us to use the micrometer to check string gauges. And you guys are right, opening a Rick case will stop most people in there tracks. I had my 450-12 in the store once and almost brought the neighborhood cop to tears. After several "Oh, man"s, he told me how he had one just like it back in the day but had to sell it in Denver to get money to get back to Illinois. There's always a story.

Good story, Ric!

(and all the others!)

cjj wrote:It's not really a syndrome, it's more of a fact. Rick owners are superior...

Yer damn straight!

Plus I am superior anyways....

If I open a Ric case in a music store I usually get a crowd... usually when playing out, some one who doesn't know anything about basses say what a cool looking bass it is. let's face it - a really classic look!

but I do know it is hard to do both the bike and play Ric at the same time!