Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Can anyone explain this photo? It is obviously from around 1970-71. It shows Paul with a natural wood (Mapleglo, as we all know) finish Ricky - but look at the body. I thought when he sanded the psychedelic Beatle's era paint job off his Rick that he overhanded it and rounded off the horns. This photo shows the horns intact. Is it the same bass? I am sure there is someone out there who knows. Thanks!

There's a little chip on the pickguard right below the bridge pickup volume control. That was visible in pictures from 1966 when it was still fireglo. The horns must have been rounded off at a later time.

Yes, the horns were rounded off at a later date, along with experimenting with a zero fret and the horseshoe magnets dying, to be refitted with an overwound High Gain, all at various points as Wings was taking flight and the America tour.

So from what you're saying, 'the rounding of the horns" was not a result of over-zealous sanding, but was actually a later, pre-meditated modification, (or dare I say "mutilation")?

Ah, now why would he want to go and do a silly thing like that for?!

I'm not doubting the veracity of your statements gentlemen; it's just kinda hard for me to wrap my head around...

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=404853
http://www.thecanteen.com/mccartney6.html
http://www.thecanteen.com/arnquist.html
https://www.talkbass.com/threads/mccart ... 01.922794/

Many a musician over the years has gone out on the limb and experimented with the look or functionality of their instruments. Following the Beatles history closely revelaed that they were no exception to this practice. This, to my way of thinking, falls within the limits of "it seemed like a good idea at the time." You can't make this stuff up. We have the photos to prove it.

admin wrote:Many a musician over the years has gone out on the limb and experimented with the look or functionality of their instruments. Following the Beatles history closely revelaed that they were no exception to this practice. This, to my way of thinking, falls within the limits of "it seemed like a good idea at the time." You can't make this stuff up. We have the photos to prove it.

Indeed. I still have my $56.95 Sears & Roebuck guitar my folks bought me in April, 1975, having done more experiments on it than most people ever think about, again, for all the reasons: remedy a manufacturing defect, curiosity to see what a mod would sound or look like, and upgrade deficient components. Not all of them I did myself (like the fretwork), but most of it I did myself. I still have the guitar; it is actually gigable; and it doesn't look from a distance too far off from what it looked like new. Yes, I spent more than buying a guitar with the features I changed, but who cares? I didn't do them all at once, more like over a couple of decades, even though I had the ideas even as a teenager, from seeing what the Beatles and others did to their instruments, and reading about mods in Guitar Player magazine. I'm done modding this guitar; I have done all that can be done without compromising the structural integrity of the instrument. Regarding mods generally, remember, this was the '70's: DiMarzio pickups were new. Mighty Mite pickups and guitar parts, including brass bridges, were new (necks came soon thereafter); Seymour Duncan went from rewinding pickups for the stars at Fender London Soundhouse to starting his own company; BadAss bridges were new, everyone was replacing Klusons with Grovers, and so on. Attached is a picture of a guitar of the same year, make and model to show what my guitar would have looked like new, but for the missing whammy handle, and a picture of my guitar today. Changes: tuners were installed upside down at the factory, so I disassembled them and remounted the plate to get the worms and posts in the correct orientation; changed headstock string bar for string trees; refretted from wearing the frets out; mini humbucker pickups routed and mounted; switches rebuilt from wearing out after re-soldering them in every pickup wiring configuration I could experiment with: series, parallel, phase, etc.; ditched the whammy for a Guild tailpiece for ease of string changes, tuning stability, and balancing the insanely light body (and which by lucky accident bolted exactly into the slots in the plate where the whammy mechanism was attached); added 22nd fret; replaced the bar bridge with a Tune-o-Matic bridge after a couple of different other experiments with bridges; rewired the pots with 1 meg resistors over the 500k pots to bring the value down to @ 330k to take the icepick edge off, changed the tone capacitor from .022 to .033. I learned an immense amount on how electric guitars work, without screwing up something really expensive, and as a result, today, I have my gig box full of tools and parts so when a bandmate's instrument takes a **** I can fix it during break and keep the gig going, which I have done many, many times. And as you all have seen from my posts in other threads, I continue to upgrade, refine and fine tune all my instruments, including my Rickenbackers, including switching mods for 3-pickup guitars, cutting a new saddle for the low E string pair on a 12-string with a 6-saddle bridge for better intonation; custom bushings for the slot tuners of a 12-string; unwinding or having rewound pickups; re-routing the pickup slots to adjust the placement of the pickups on my 21-inch scale 320 so the bridge pickup is closer to the bridge as it is on the original 20 3/4-inch scale instruments, etc.
then: now:

Scott. Thanks for the sentimental journey. This is so familiar it could have been my story over the years. But what a great ride and such a valuable learning experience. In your case all for the handsome price of $56.95. It won't be too long before people start asking us, what is Sears and Roebuck?

admin wrote:Scott. Thanks for the sentimental journey. This is so familiar it could have been my story over the years. But what a great ride and such a valuable learning experience. In your case all for the handsome price of $56.95. It won't be too long before people start asking us, what is Sears and Roebuck?

Thanks! Yes, things change. I will save my story about teaching my son and his friend about how a rotary dial desk telephone works for later.

Hilarious Scott. I can't wait to hear you dial that one in.

Hey Scott,
Thank you for your replies and those great links. It's so enjoyable to connect with Ricky fanatics who understand my obsessions with details. You know, I did go back and look it up in Paul Boyer's Rickenbacker bass book, which I read about 6 years ago and he had the same info about Paul's bass that you gave us, which I'd obviously forgotten! Oh well. It's much more fun hearing it from fellow Ricky fans. Keep on Ricken, boys!

It does seem funny that the three top Rickenbacker bass players of all time pretty much mutilated their Ricks. Macca's story is typical, Chris Squire "refinished" his RM 1999 several times, broke off the headstock, had repairs made, and who knows what all. Lemmy Kilmister had a series of Ricks that he manhandled, mangled, and modified over the years.

It is a pity that Geddy Lee didn't use his Rickenbacker basses more. He was good to them though, as far as I can remember.