Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I hope I'm not impolite or something, but I was curious about how Rickenbackers are produced. Are there different production lines for each model, or do you produce them in batches, and how do you do leftie instruments? Again, this comes from a guitar industry nitwit, so please, don't bash me too hard

A very good question actually. Take the Factory Tour at Rickenbacker to get an idea of the answer.

...or here http://community.webshots.com/album/99294967oioFXx/0

Yes. Thanks Grant. Some lovely photos on this tour as well.

nice pics indeed... seems they were working on a load of basses and v-series at the moment. And we all envy somebody's private museum, I'd gather...

About 17-18 years ago here in the UK, there was a TV program about the history of the electric guitar entitled 'Twang Bang Kerrang', which was part of the Equinox series on Channel 4.

It had some footage of the Rickenbacker factory showing guitars and basses being manufactured , showing routing ,fretting and finishing and there was mention of wood selection and seasoning.
I'm not sure if this was especially filmed by the makers of the program or whether it was footage from elsewhere that was used.
It might of been footage from the 70's or maybe early 80's...I'm not sure.

Did anyone else see it or know anymore about this footage?

With Love..

Check out this thread, some practical infos in there:

Making a Rickenbacker

COOL!!!!!Those webshot pics are great! That must be the first pics ever taken of the factory for anyone to see.. I've never heard of the band, who got the tour, I guess it's a band. They look like they could be anybody. They must have had the winning wonka bar.. There are all these new bands out now touring and stuff that are supposed to be famous or something, with big shows and tour-buses. I figured if I heard of them they must be famous, because I don't keep up on things.. Maybe I am just getting to be a 30-something old fart....stuck in my own music.

Where do left-handed instruments come in? Are they part of separate batches, or do they have a batch of their own?

Jeremy Llewellan-Jones from Kerrang spent a number of days in our old factory, filming everybody and everything in sight. I even did an interview section in it. They told me it was for a show on guitar construction, sort of a "how do they do it" kind of thing.

I was very surprised to view the show in London a month or so later and discover that it mainly was a psychological analysis regarding guitars and their players, essentially that guitars are huge phallic symbols and guitarists struggling with inadequacy. Similar to the gun thing.

Well, no kidding! And it took a TV show with George Harrison, Pete Townshend, and other artists to tell us THAT?

Peter, you're a clinical psychiatrist, you want to offer a take on this?

To my knowledge, this footage exists in PAL format only and therefore has not been available in the rest of the world.

By the way, Mike Hegedus's "Outside the Box" will air an episode about us on CNBC in the next few days, for those on you on cable. Hopefully the time I spent with him didn't also turn into a psychological profile.

Rogier, lefties are handled as part of standard production, running through the line like any other instrument.

Landon, the leader of "Thrice" is the son of a very long time friend of mine, which is the only reason they were allowed to tour the factory. They are a young, upcoming band on Island Records, becoming more and more visible everyday. There's much more about them and a very extensive international tour schedule posted on Island's site.

Thanks for the info regarding the filming John.

Your right to say that it dealt more with the psychological aspects of guitarists and guitars.

There was indeed some Doctor of Psychiartry saying that guitars are huge phallic symbols!

In spite of all that, the footage of the factory was fascinating...I could watch stuff like that all day.

As a matter of interest,Jerry Donahue was demonstrating some amazing picking techniques and triple string bending on a Telecaster!

This documentary was filmed about 17 or 18 years ago? Hadn't there been a lot of guitarist's humping their guitars during the preceeding ten years?

I was going to say something about Donohue's pricking technique and G string bending but since it wasn't a RIC, I won't.

Maybe the phallic theory is why I feel a sense of pity when I see guys playing those head stock-less guitars