Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Does anyone know where I can find checkerboard binding? The major supply houses like Stew Mac carry only the basic white/black/cream binding. Any leads would be greatly appreciated!

Periodicly there is a guy on ebay, and sometimes ricbid.com that sells it. Unfortunatly you will have to wait until he has an auction up. the price is usually about 12-20 dollars.

I saw that once but was too late to bid. Does anyone know who makes the stuff? I would like to buy some for a project.

The place I bought it from is in Georgia, but I can't remember his name. You might also check with Bjorn's Rickbid site, he has a seller that usually has some.

Is it possible to replace the existing white binding on a 4003 with the checkerboard binding? If so, what needs to be done? Would the bass need to be refinished?

PS.
Ted - welcome and very nice stuff you got there. I was feeling pretty good about my collection until I saw yours!

cheers!

Andy,
I had the same question a while back so I looked into it a little bit, and from what I understand, you would have to remove the white binding, rout away a little more of the outside of the body so that the checkered strip could fit in there, and then add the white strip to the edge of the body.
And then, of course, seal the whole thing together. Refinishing might be the only way to put it all together.

I got some from a guy in Oklahoma. It's the same thickness as the white or black binding that is used on RIC guitars however not the same width. I assume that RIC binding is actually two ply (check on the inside, white on the outside, laminated together). Being that, it will not fit into the current binding channel. The binding channel would have to be re-routed and then cut by hand at the neck. I think i'd be pretty tough to do without a refin.

I recently saw a '69 360 that had the binding coming off it. The outer white binding and the checkerboard binding are two seperate pieces, so you would need to route out the binding ledge deeper for the checker binding and then the original binding can be put back on next to it.

By my admittedly haphazard measurements, checkerboard binding is an 1/8th inch thick where the standard binding is only about 1/16th inch. So it appears that checkerboard is made up of at least 2 different pieces - possibly 3.

No, it is just alternating pieces of black and white plastic that make up the strip. The width of the strip is about 1/4" front to back.

I always thought that checkered binding was a 2-piece deal. The first piece was the "checkered" part, and then another piece of white binding over that. The edge is not checkered...

Looks like 2 strips of binding material on my Shadow, the inner one is checkered and the outer strip is plain black.

Yep, that's correct.

My Shadow looks the same way. My 4002 seems to have a third piece but it is hard to tell. BTW Ian I think my Shadow's SN is similar to yours. I have ZI 2867. Someone here, I think it was you, said he has a ZI.

Yes - I have ZI 2528.