Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

The Bb on the A string on my V63 is now bottoming out. All strings from fret 1 to 9 used to have a pleasant buzz, but now are all sounding close to bottoming out. The Bb on the A string barely rings out. If I hold down the string on fret 1 and 20 there is an ever slight dip. If I hold fret 1 and 9 there is no dip at all and the strings are all pinned against the frets. If I hold frets 9 and 20 there is a slight dip.

The action is pretty nice on this bass, so I want to keep it where it is if possible.

I'm used to the old 4001 truss rods and this is the newest Rick bass that I may have to deal with the truss rods. Can anybody give me some advice as what I should try to fix the problem? There are no real Rick experts in this area that I know of, so I want to tackle this on my own first.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

What year? New style rods? Bow or backbow?

1992 V-63. From frets 1-9 it looks either perfectly flat or a slight back bow. From frets 9-20 a slight bow.

Tighten the truss rods to correct a bow, loosen them to correct a hump. Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey. Quarter turn at a time, give the neck a day to adjust between turns.

Could it be that the nut has ground down too low from use? This happened with my Les Paul. The action was super duper perfect low when I got it, but after about two years of heavy usage, the strings acted like a saw in the (already cut too low) nut and the 1st fret on the high E string started fretting out.

The bump "back bow" is on frets 1-9 and a slight bow is on frets 9-20.

Not sure if the nut is worn, but good idea. I'm going to turn the truss rods counter-clockwise to see if it helps.

Any other ideas let me know.

Rikk

Just adjusted both truss rods quarter turn counter clockwise. Marginally better. Still hitting all frets when I hold down from frets 1-9 straight edge. Will wait a day to see if it improves. If not I'll try a quarter more tomorrow.

Ah, a dreaded "S" curve. My 4002 had this when I got it. Chris Clayton worked some magic and fixed it after all Humpty Dumpty's men in Tampa couldn't fix it. I forget what he did, I think it was just to install a new set of rods or something reasonably simple. Perhaps humidity changes played a factor?

rikk wrote:Just adjusted both truss rods quarter turn counter clockwise. Marginally better. Still hitting all frets when I hold down from frets 1-9 straight edge. Will wait a day to see if it improves. If not I'll try a quarter more tomorrow.

How's the neck doing? I'm not an expert either but sometimes necks take a considerable amount of time to conform to truss rod changes. I would maybe loosen them, I wouldn't worry too much about adjusting a post 80's Rick bass though. Oops just realized this thread was posted today.

Just tried the bass this morning. Wow! what a difference overnight makes. After loosening the truss rods a quarter turn Bb no longer bottoms out. If played gently no buzz at all, but I tear at the strings so there still is a buzz, but a more growly kind. I'm going to leave it for a couple of days and see if anything changes still. If not I may try the low truss ross about 1/8 turn more and try lowering the action to compensate for any rise.

rikk wrote:Just tried the bass this morning. Wow! what a difference overnight makes. After loosening the truss rods a quarter turn Bb no longer bottoms out. If played gently no buzz at all, but I tear at the strings so there still is a buzz, but a more growly kind. I'm going to leave it for a couple of days and see if anything changes still. If not I may try the low truss ross about 1/8 turn more and try lowering the action to compensate for any rise.

Indeed. But you may also have a worn nut, or some fret wear that needs crowning. The low 1st fret F on the E string on my 320 did something similar, and after redoing the nut and crowning the first few frets, it is in perfect playing condition: no twangs, grinds, buzzes or dropouts.

This would be rare, but it's also possible there is a slight flat spot in the fingerboard crown radius at that point that may need further attention down the road. That happened to one of Cassius987's fretless basses.

iiipopes wrote:This would be rare, but it's also possible there is a slight flat spot in the fingerboard crown radius at that point that may need further attention down the road. That happened to one of Cassius987's fretless basses.

Yeah, that was a headache. In this case the fingerboard would make the fret conform and you could just have fret leveled, but I had to have the whole fingerboard sanded and resprayed. The end result has proven to be perfect though, so it worked out.

The frets are in pretty good shape. Previous owner used flats and I use nickel GHS Boomers, but it could be partly to blame. Just played it this morning and it sounds good enough for my show tomorrow. That will certainly put it through a more rigorous test than me playing it at home. I wish there was a real Rick guy around here that I could trust with it.