Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hello all,

I just recently got a Ric 330 walnut, 2014 model. It plays and sounds fantastic but I have a small problem. With my string gauge of choice (.010 D'addario XLs), the neck has a tiny bit of back bow with the truss rods loosened almost completely slack. (Any looser and the nuts start to rattle and can be finger removed easily.)

The guitar has good action and plays easily with no buzzing through the amp; however, I am concerned that when the weather changes the neck may move some, and without being able to adjust out the backbow I could be in trouble.

Does this sort of thing improve over time thanks to the string tension? It isn't a tremendous amount of bow - it's just barely rocking my straightedge when I lay it across the frets. I'm just worried that this will change and I won't be able to do anything about it once the winter comes.

Anyone have experience with something like this on a Ric?

I have the same issue with my early 90's 620/6. It had a very slight back bow that got a little worse, and that little bit made a notable difference in the playability.

I decided to try and pull it with some heavy gauge strings, so I put 13s on the guitar, and gradually tuned it up to pitch over the course of a few hours under a bit of heat. It moved initially, bit it's been sitting with the 13s on it, tuned up 1/2 step for over 2 weeks and hasn't moved any more. The truss rods are completely slacked, and this thing is putting up a hell of a fight. In my case, i'm worried that the frets might have to be removed and the fingerboard might need to be slotted out a little wider. It shouldn't be putting up that much of a fight.

In any case, the first thing i'd recommend is doing what I did with the heavier gauge strings. Try and and let it sit for a while. It's a fair amount of tension, so i'd let the guitar sit in the sun or near a heater until it's pretty warm before tuning up to pitch all the way. This will help ensure you don't get any finish cracks or seperating between the fingerboard and the neck. I tuned it to D, and brought it up gradually until it was at pitch, then went higher after a few days. Keep the truss rod nuts loose, but touching the truss rod plate. This will prevent any excessive neck movement over a short period (though in my case, that's clearly not a worry. ) Also, I put 2 large magic markers inbetween the strings and the fingerboard (5th and 9th frets), so the strings were pulling up as well, and there isn't a possibility of the tension pulling at a bad angle.

Anyways, this is a lot of rambling without a lot of useful info. But I wanted to let you know that you're not the only one with the issue. I'll keep you updated on mine. It's currently sitting at about 0.004" of relief (at the 9th fret) with the 13s on it. I was hoping to get to 0.010, so I could retain some adjustability with regular strings on it (I use 10s).

Hope that helps. Try the heavy strings, if that doesn't work, you'll have to take it to someone. That's the way my situation is looking.

As set forth above, use a set of 11's or 12's. I prefer D'Addario XL115W 11-49 with the wound 3rd G string. It has nice balance string-to-string and overall not too firm, not too loose.

Thank you both, I will definitely give that a try.