Have the neck strips always been Walnut?

[collin]

Have the neck strips of Rickenbacker guitars always been walnut over the years? I'm talking your average 330/360 etc, though I'm sure most are the same..

Looking at the necks of various vintage Rickenbackers, the grain looks different. Color isn't a good indication because they aren't stripped bare. Some even look like rosewood or even Bubinga like the fretboard! Hard to tell though..

I'm looking to repair a neck and want to make sure I'm using the right replacement material. Any ideas?

[cjj]

I know the 4001 basses had shedua strips for the "Skunk Stripe", so it's possible that may have been used in guitars too...

[johnhall]

Shedua was used many more years than Walnut and for a while more recently, we used retified Maple. We're back to using Walnut.

From a pure solidness, sound, and finish point of view, nothing beats the retified Maple but it's so hard that it is very difficult to work with. Walnut and Shedua work and look very much alike, although the Shedua needs to age a bit to look like the Walnut.

[collin]

That answers it perfectly, thanks guys!

Shedua would likely be that more light brown type wood with open grain I'm seeing that looks more like Rosewood than the darker Walnut?