Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Has anyone switched from the "R" tailpiece to the trapeze tailpiece? I'm considering this, along with the wider-spacing nut mod, and 12-string bridge, on my recent Fireglo 360-12. It already has gold guards, a gold trussrod cover, and the black vintage knobs. The icing on the cake will be a personalized "Signature Edition gold guard.

In addition to gold pickguards, oven knobs, and one of my "tiny tophat" blend knobs, I am seriously considering this mod to my 381, to lend a more vintage vibe.

I say, "considering" because it will be non-reversible, as the tailpiece screw holes will have to be re-drilled. Gulp.

Paul, if you can find an older (but not TOO old) trapeeze bracket, it will line up perfectly with the strap bolt. (A very modern one won't line up, because the hole was moved to be like the ones from the 60's.)

The secondary screw holes really aren't there for shear strength, as the strap bolt is pretty beefy, but only to keep the bracket straight. As a result, you could cut the heads off the screws, superglue them in as dummies, and therefore always go back later if you wished. I'd probably put two felt dots on the back of the tailpiece itself in case the bracket wanted to twist, although you could also put a star washer between the bracket and the wood that would be covered by either tailpiece.

Thanks, John! My mind is feeling more rested now...

OK: Anybody got an earlier trapeze tailpiece bracket or tailpiece assembly that they'd like to sell?

I'll have pictures up as soon as I get the 381 done. But I'll admit--right now I am having too much fun playing and admiring it to put it down for even a few days.

Paul,

This is exactly what I intend for my 360. I always liked the trapeze better than the "R" tailpiece anyway, and stringing the "R" strikes me as overly annoying for a lazy person such as myself. For a point of reference, I've attached pictures of the rear holes from a 66 360 (note the nicely aligned holes ), and a rear view of the Ac'cent tailpiece on a 62 625 and a trapeze on an 88 610. As you can see, the hole for the strapbolt is a different distance below the top edge of the body on each guitar (625: 7/8", 360: 1/2", 610: 3/8"). I don't know if this distance is a function of year, model, original tailpiece, or some combination thereof.

As John suggested, I plan to rely on only the strap bolt to hold the tailpiece in place (I don't want to drill any new holes). I figure that if the strap bolt alone works for the Accent tailpiece, it should work for anything else. It appears that the real trick is finding the right bracket to match up with the hole in your body.

66 360:


62 625:


88 610:

Hey, nice pics Adam.

I think it would work quite the same as an accent tailpiece. You can push it out of whack if you want, but the tension of the strings holds it straight while playing.

Perhaps the felt dots JH mentioned should go under the 'tongues' of the bracket itself, because that looks like it would hit the body before the bracket does. The accent has felt dots where it touches the body too.

I've done the 'R' swap out for the trapeze before, but I drilled those four holes because it was a modern 330 that I didn't mind permenately personalizing.

I was going to convert my '80 620/12 to a trapeze, until I removed the original R-tailpiece. It seems that the R-tailpiece left a mark on the guitar's Fireglo face near the mounting bracket. It only took me a minute to decide that the original tailpiece would remain on the guitar. I hope you have better luck.

Is there a gold pickup switch selector available anywhere or by worse to worse another maker such as gulp Gibson?

The 650 Sierra has all gold hardware, so they do exist...
I have no idea if RIC sell those replacements.

Maybe someone else will know.

If you mean gold plated (not amber plastic), both Gretsch and Gibson have them and the parts houses sell them. If you mean amber, a white plastic one can be dyed with aniline dye or alcohol-based walnut wood stain.