Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I am contemplating having the fretboard de-laquered and finished in a satin finish, as well as having larger (medium jumbo- the Dunlop size 6105 or 6100) frets installed on my 660. while i love the guitar, i think i would like the satin finish and the bigger frets. I am not sure how it would affect the sound, but the playability of this great guitar i think would be improved. Have any of you had this done (to any of your Ricks), and what do you think of the results? Any suggestions on luthiers? ( i live in the San Francisco Bay area). What should i expect to pay for a good result? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

I've heard it said if they did that to the 3 series, Gibson 335's would have some serious competition.

That's an interesting question. I really don't care for lacquered fretboards, myself. This is only opinion, but I don't like either feel or (especially) the look. I've been wavering on the purchase of a new Rick, and the lacquered fretboard is one of the items in the "con" column. IMHO, nothing beats plain, lightly oiled rosewood. Of course, others have different opinions which are equally valuable in a subjective matter such as this.

I'm now in the process of redoing an older instrument, and one of the first things I did was to scrape the old lacquer from the fretboard. I would hesitate to use that particular guitar as deterministic evidence in this discussion, but it was a marked improvement in playability. I subsequently had the neck refretted and the fretboard sanded to give it a more uniform radius and remove all traces of lacquer. I like it better than any of the new Rick's that I've played lately - but again, that's only my opinion.

You might try simply scraping the old lacquer off your fretboard. Get a razor blade and draw it across the top (going fret to fret, with the grain). It won't cost you anything, and it's pretty simple to reshoot the lacquer if you don't like the change. I have no idea how such a deviation from originality affects the value of a guitar, but it seems a worthwhile trade to take a slight hit if you like the resulting instrument better.

As far as luthiers: try Mark's Guitars in San Jose (they've done work for me) or Gary Brawer in San Francisco (never used him, but a great reputation).

Think twice before acting...

I really disliked the laquered fretboard on my 660/12 when I first got it, having played an unlaquered Les Paul and Jazz Bass for all these years. It felt "sticky" to me, or at least the friction between my skin and the board was higher. After playing the Rick steady for a few weeks, however, I no longer noticed it.

This sort of modification has been attempted on RIC models before and some posters to this Forum have been disappointed with the switch to larger frets.

Thank you all for the feedback. Stephen, i think i will take your advice and just play the guitar a bit more before making a radical change. As usual, the answer lies in just playing more....

My 92 360 needed a fretjob and I had it de-laquered (is that what you call it?) and and had frets like a 335 installed.

On the 6 string it is pretty cool. I love it. I have it set up with .12s.

I had it done to my 360/12, and it was not a good idea. The strings would go sharp when you fretted them. I had the frets dressed down (filed down? what do you call this) to where they were originally. The 12 string string guages being pretty light I guess.

I had this done at San Francisco Guitarworks (www.precisionfretwork.com). Geoff is the guy there and he does an awesome job.

He's worked on my 12 string quite a bit, and he got the 6 back up and running. Check him out.

www.precisionfretwork.com

I'd stay away from 6100. That's a really big fret. I pull open chords sharp with anything above 0.040". The 6150/6105 range is closer to what you'll want after dressing. There's a 6140 that no one seems to talk about. 0.039" tall x .106" wide.

Dave, FWIW neither the Dunlop 6100 or 6105 is medium jumbo. Jumbo refers to width above .100", medium refers to height. The 6100 is a tall jumbo and the 6105 isn't jumbo at all, it's a tall regular. The 6105 is the same size as frets on Gibsons of the last 20 years or so.

Anyway...when I have a choice, I prefer unlacquered boards and low-wide frets (like Dunlop 6130). But I wouldn't buy a new guitar with a lacquered board and different frets and then change it. If I buy it, I learn to love it for what it is. And if I can't do that, then I sell it to somebody who will.

And unless you're sure you will keep this forever, remember that you'll not only spend money on the work, you'll devalue the guitar by at least that much to boot.

JMHO, YMMV.

I would agree with Dave,

I only had the de-laquering done on the 6 string because it so badly needed a fret job anyway. The 12 string idea came about because I had already had installed the 12 saddle bridge and arnquist style nut anyway and these mods were really very useful and worth it.

I guess an advantage of the fretboard being de-laquered on the 12 even though I have the frets the same size as the originals is that they now go over the binding a bit. I found before sometimes the high E pair would slip off. But not so great an advantage that I would recomend doing it. It's nt like I am playing over the binding or anything. In fact if I get another 12 I'll do the nut and the 12 saddle bridge and leave it at that.

john and dave, thanks so much for the advice. i have decided to take that advice and stick with the original fretboard and frets. i will learn to adjust to it. Thanks again to everyone for all the feedback.