Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

well, Acouple months ago.....I bought a 7 guitar rack by warlock. It seemed like a convienent way of getting all of my own, and my bands guitars at an easily accessible point on stage. Well, 1 month later I looked at the Bottom of My Rick 330 and noticed that it has black marks on either side of the body. I soon relized that the foam on the stand was "leaking" (so to say) on to the bottom of the rick. I managed to get some of the dye off of the rick, but there are still small marks ----Just a warning

WOW!! I was just considering getting one of those for my basses at home!! Thanks for the warning Alex!! Sorry it happened to YOU , but your post here will perhaps help some people avoid the same type of damage in the future.....

I've been thinking of getting one as well...THANKS!

Did you email/write/phone call Warlock to complain about this? Maybe they can do something about it.

I used to work at a music store and the guitars that were hanging on the wall always had the yellow marks from the surgical rubber from the hangers if they were there too long.

Did it do this to any of the other guitars or just the Rick? Maybe you could cover the foam or replace it with felt, or find a better foam, I have a couple of Ultimate stands, that have foam, that I have left guitars on for a couple of years at home with no problems. One of the guitars is a 610. This foam seems to have a finish layer or skin so to speak, and is very dense. Good luck, it is always a drag when you buy a product to protect you investment and it doesn't live up to expectations. Thanks for the tip.

one way around this problem is to take an old cotton t shirt and cut and sew a small tube of material and slip that over the foam. Keeps the guitar from foam/rubber contact and still allows the foam/rubber of the stand to cushion the guitar at the pressure points.

This softening is caused by the plasticizer (probably diisodecyl pthalate) migrating from the synthetic "rubber" padding material on the guitar stand. This happens on a molecular level and no woven cotton cloth will prevent it. It's akin to trying to fashion a vessel to carry water from t-shirt material.

Cotton t-shirt material will only slow it down. If you were to do the cotton t-shirt thing and leave your Ric sitting there for a period of months, for example, undisturbed, the result would be the same--a softening of the Ric's finish. A better solution (as compulsive as it might sound--sorry!) would be to wrap a small polyethylene baggie around the offending area of the stand, tape it into place (no rubber bands--they have plasticizers, too!) and then cover THIS with the cotton "tube". BTW, don't use vinyl electrical tape--it's loaded with plasticizer as well. Use masking tape.

Paul, I've been out of the chemical/environmental engineering world for a long time...won't there be plasticizers in the plastic bag too?

I'd suppose that they'd be far more stable than the foam and or rubber bands, but the potential for the same thing exists.

Basicaly I try to rotate my guitars so that they never stay on one stand too long. Of course, there are certain guitars that only work on certain stands, for example my J-Bass, with it's sloped bottom, only sits well on one of my stands. So for those, I try to keep them in their cases periodically (now that I'm playing bass almost 100% it's pretty easy to do that with my guitars!).

Pretty sad that the devices that we use to keep our investments safe can actually cause damage, but it's pretty typical of life. At least plastics are far better with this than in the past: a friend has a mid 60's Fender Super Reverb, and the power cord leaks plasticizers A LOT. And from that time period they are probably PCB's!

I don't think we have to worry about our gear oozing out toxins nowadays!

Plastic bags, as they are generically known, are generally made of low-density polyethylene (LDPE), which is chemically quite stable and largely inert. Polyethylene is a big concern in landfill situations, because it is so stable and thus uninclined to break down chemically. Any finish damage which is attributed to the bags is erroneous--it's from moisture trapped under the plastic being held in contact with the finish by the bag itself. PE does not "breathe".

Vinyl, on the other hand, along with many of the foams (and I don't know exactly which foam is used on those guitar stands) emits plasticizers for a long time. This constant emission ("sloughing") is what keeps it flexible. That lovely "new car smell" that car buyers of the '60s used to rave about, was due to a concentration of evaporated plasticizer in the enclosed space. My Dad's '62 Pontiac (with its trademark "Morrokide" pearlescent vinyl) was still emitting when he sold it on in '70, to the point where it would fog the windshield on hot summer days.

BTW, plasticizers are blended with a scent. Without it vinyl would smell like a gym shoe. I once received some prototype rotocast parts made in NE China, which had not had scent added, and I had to keep them in the hallway outside my office.

Ford's plastics were quite different, I understand, because of Henry's devotion to soy-based plastics. I've not done a whole lot of reading on this, though, so can't speak with authority.

Rics and other guitars with a nitro-celluloselacquer often have this kind of problem, and the only way to be certain wether the foam will react with the finish is to put your guitar on and leave it there. This, naturally, is insane.

I have a cheap way of preventing this problem which I use no matter what the stand is. Go to a haberdashers and buy a roll of 100% cotton 1 inch wide black dressmakers tape - it's basically a black cotton ribbon. Wind the tape onto the foam areas making sure you overlap each winding to guarantee double coverage. Then stitch the ends onto the foam. Works perfectly on all my guitar stands.

Theoretically, it won't "work perfectly", given enough time, and it won't take too much more time for those nasty plasticizers to pass right through the cloth.

A barrier is needed--one which is impervious to plasticizers. Plasticizers are VERY reactive--that is their purpose. They don't just react with nitro, either--they will attack virtually any finish given enough time, along with many thermomelt plastics, including styrene and ABS. They will not attack PVC (vinyl), polypropylene, or polyethylene. Hence the baggie suggestion.

However, if you move the guitars every so often, you won't have the problem of leaching that we're referring to, in which case this whole discussion has been moot hair-splitting.

I only keep my basses on the stands when Im playing or working on them. The rest of the time I keep them in their cases.

Which would be a problem for me as I play most of my guitars every day (that is, keeping them in their cases)!

Welcome to senior membership, Patrick!