The Rickenbacker Club Part Seven

[2nd Wind]

Originally Posted by Sartori

Yeah... that guy had a lot of odd complaints.

Many, many, many instruments have binding. Some Fenders do, even. If you find refretting an instrument with binding to be an impossible chore, you probably shouldn't go into instrument repair.

Excellent!

[Niff]

Originally Posted by willsellout

Rics are a pain to work on. Its just a fact of life. Everyone knows it. The good thing is that you don't have to work on them much after you get it where you want it.

i learned to intonate bass guitars on a rickenbacker 4001 and an epiphone EB-0 with the gibson 3-point bridge style

needless to say, every other bass is a BREEZE to intonate

[BassGen]

Originally Posted by Sartori

Yeah... that guy had a lot of odd complaints.

Many, many, many instruments have binding. Some Fenders do, even. If you find refretting an instrument with binding to be an impossible chore, you probably shouldn't go into instrument repair.

Such as a Fender American Deluxe Jazz. Full binding on the neck IIRC.

[thiocyclist]

Originally Posted by willsellout

Why should we take out intonation? That's the main sticking point for a lot of people and it's a giant PITA. The fact is I can intonate a J bass in 5 minutes. It takes me 20 to do it on a Ric.

I never said take it out. I agreed it's not as fast or easy. Are you misreading me? As for the time involved, I guess it will vary from person to person. More often than not I check the intonation and don't even need to mess with it if the truss rod is adjusted so the neck is about where I had it last time I did intonation.

Here are other reasons why I say they are more difficult:
- Truss rod adjustment; with dual rods comes fine tuning that doesn't need to be done with single rod basses. Whether this is a plus or not is up to the end user. Is it difficult? No. Does it take more time to set up properly? Yes, it certainly can; especially if you are new to Ric's.
- The bridge pickup is a mess to work with when putting it back in. Is it especially difficult? No. Does it take more time? IME, yes.
-I personally don't care for the neck pickup spring setup
-The lack of individual string height adjustment means more time finding the right balance of action and playability. This isn't always a huge time consumer but for a person who likes their action low (me), and without buzz (me), it takes more time to work with the bass and treble sides to get the action where I like it.
-While I'm on the lack of individual heigh adjustments: I've found that if you really want to dial in your Ric, you need to take files to the saddles and individually dial them in. For me, this is a necessity to get things where I want them.

Also, if you have worked on Ric's throughout the years you encounter a lot of inconsistency from year to year and you find yourself having to work on the bass to make things that should fit, fit. Or things that should work, work.

It's a finicky beast. Great bass, but it's not always an easy bass to work on in my experience.

I think a lot of your points are really niggling or misleading. The "tweaking" of the dual truss rods is really non-existent/mythical in my experience, just like the idea that they are independent of each other in adjusting the sides of the neck. They both add or remove relief pretty much equally over the whole neck except perhaps on the smallest level.

The bridge pickup is assembled with more parts than others but how does that affect most end users? It doesn't. All they need to deal with are the height adjusting screws on either side.

What springs are you talking about for the neck pickup? It's adjusted with two machine screws, if that's too hard to deal with then why not just pay a guitar tech to change the strings? I mean seriously.

The saddles are radiused to match the fingerboard. I set my action with a 6'' ruler and I have never had difficulty getting the right setup with the stock bridge. With individual saddles, you actually have to do (gasp) more work.

I won't argue with you about doing a really precise job on the saddles (and nut) one time for the life of the bass. I do that with all of my basses though.

We can go back and forth about how important these things are but from where I'm standing you're putting a mountain sign next to a molehill. And you probably feel the opposite, which is fine.

[Sartori]

Oh, I'm willing to accept that Rickenbackers have some aspects that might be more time consuming to work on. The bridge certainly is. Two truss rods mean every adjustment step has to be done twice.

Two pickups (as opposed to single pickup basses) means that much more to do as well, and I'm willing to accept that the way the bridge pickup is makes it a bit more time consuming.

I think the major thing is that while I think there are some things that might be more time consuming about a Rickenbacker (especially a 4001, not as much the 4003, and less so the 4004), I don't think that most of these things are actually much more difficult, they just take a little longer.

A Fender is probably easier to work on than my upright bass, too, though. That doesn't make it necessarily a better instrument.

A one string bass with a pickup wired straight to the jack, and a neck so thick it didn't even really need a truss rod would be quite easy to work on. Doesn't mean it would be a better instrument, though.

[Spleenface92]

I took the pickup cover off my rick and ended up putting the pickup back in backwards...but that was my own dumb fault.
However, the only difficulty I've had working on my Ric (I've never done a setup or anything on it) was putting on the aftermarket pickguard. The neck pickup rout was too small so I had to file it out myself, and I had to drill holes in the body for the screw placement on the pickguard. But that's because I bought a two piece pickguard for a 2011 4003...once again, my own fault.

[Jazz4]

I'm still looking for a source for the hairpin truss rods for my 4003. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

[Kopfjaeger]

Originally Posted by Jazz4

I'm still looking for a source for the hairpin truss rods for my 4003. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Will the old style "hair pin" truss rods work in a 4003? I was under the impression the way the neck routs were bowed in a 4003 they were set up for the new (post 1980) style rods. I may be wrong.

From time to time there is a dealer in Great Britain that sells re manufactured hair pin rods. I think the question on them was if they were actually heat formed or simply ground flat surfaces.

Sepp

[BAMonBASS]

Just watched a NAMM video on the Ric booth and according to their rep the ruby red is a standard color. Sorry if someone else already brought this up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNRkhsEwAQU

[PaulBoyer]

Originally Posted by Kopfjaeger

Will the old style "hair pin" truss rods work in a 4003? I was under the impression the way the neck routs were bowed in a 4003 they were set up for the new (post 1980) style rods. I may be wrong.Sepp

Hairpin truss rods were used on the early 4003 with the adjusting nuts and thrust plate at the body end of the neck. These also featured a new split pick guard to ease access to the rods.

The "new" rods started in early 1986 (possibly late '85) and the adjustment nuts and thrust plate returned to the headstock (along with a return of the one-piece pick guard).

So, if your 4003 is from 1986 or later, you shouldn't have hairpin truss rods. But then, there's only one absolute when it comes to Rickenbackers: There are no absolutes!

[4001]

There is a lot of info on Rickenbackers here....
http://joeysbassnotes.com/Rick_maint.htm

[Kopfjaeger]

Paul,

I did not know that! I had no idea the body side adjust rods were the older style. Learned something new today, cool!

Sepp

[PaulBoyer]

Yep! Also, the channels cut for the rods appear as two parallel slots underneath the truss-rod cover on those early ones. This system was also used on some 4008 eight-stringers as well, although they may not have the two-piece pick guard.

[Jaymi]

body side rods were 80-85 only

[willsellout]

Originally Posted by thiocyclist

I never said take it out. I agreed it's not as fast or easy. Are you misreading me? As for the time involved, I guess it will vary from person to person. More often than not I check the intonation and don't even need to mess with it if the truss rod is adjusted so the neck is about where I had it last time I did intonation.

Whether you have to do it once or 50 times, doesn't negate the fact that the design is a cluster, as is the process. But I believe I previously stated in this thread, although more work goes in to the processes, you don't normally need to repeat them often. So it's a give and take.

I think a lot of your points are really niggling or misleading. The "tweaking" of the dual truss rods is really non-existent/mythical in my experience, just like the idea that they are independent of each other in adjusting the sides of the neck. They both add or remove relief pretty much equally over the whole neck except perhaps on the smallest level.

I don't believe any of my points are misleading. Niggling? Maybe to you. To a person who works on these often, the little issues become bigger issues.

As far as the rod adjustments being "mythical".....I don't know what your experience level is, but you can do a lot more to the neck with those two truss rods than you are implying. As I stated, it isn't difficult to adjust them, but two rods takes more time than a single truss rod does for the reasons I stated earlier.

The bridge pickup is assembled with more parts than others but how does that affect most end users? It doesn't. All they need to deal with are the height adjusting screws on either side.

More parts is an understatement. But really, I'm not talking end users....well unless that end user wanted to remove the pickup cover, or install a treble bezel, or a pickguardian pickup cover. No one does that though...

To bring this back on point: We are talking about why I think they are difficult to work on. You challenged me to come up with reasons why a Ric is more difficult to work on than a Fender. These are my reasons. These are also the same reasons many techs I know don't particularly like working on Ric's.

I'll also point out that I didn't go for the obvious reasons like doing a fret level on a neck through Ric vs. a bolt on Fender, or refretting a bass with a lacquered fretboard and binding being more difficult than one without those features.

What springs are you talking about for the neck pickup? It's adjusted with two machine screws, if that's too hard to deal with then why not just pay a guitar tech to change the strings? I mean seriously.

I haven't had to deal with a new Ric but the last Ric I worked on was from 97' and it had rubber stops with springs for each screw underneath the pickguard. This was how the pickup was raised and lowered. Have things changed? I don't know. Seeming as how resistant Ric is to change, I assume I'll find the same setup. I'll know for sure within the next week or so when I tear down my 2012.

saddles are radiused to match the fingerboard. I set my action with a 6'' ruler and I have never had difficulty getting the right setup with the stock bridge. With individual saddles, you actually have to do (gasp) more work.

Not for me, and I explained why. But the fact that you are using a ruler for your setups probably explains the differences we have in our setups and the reasons why i have more issues than you do when it comes to working on a Ric. I'm sure most people don't feel the need to do the work that I do because by and large, Ric's play pretty well out of the box most of the time.

We can go back and forth about how important these things are but from where I'm standing you're putting a mountain sign next to a molehill. And you probably feel the opposite, which is fine.

These might be small things to you, but you asked me what I thought was more difficult than a comparable Fender instrument. If you want to think a Ric is as easy to work on as a Fender J bass, cool. They aren't, IMO, but you can believe whatever you feel to be true. I'm not trying to change your mind.

[rocknroll777]

Originally Posted by DaveSill

Check out this video, which slags Ricks for being hard to repair:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR--0QSLQPg

I'm not a luthier, but I think there's probably something to what he's saying. However, the video is pretty annoying and hard to watch.

He keeps harping on this Leo Fender quote: "A quality instrument is easily repaired."

Now, Leo knew more about quality instruments than all of us combined, I'm sure, but I really don't think that quote is true. Repairability is certainly a desirable trait in an instrument--probably behind playability and sound--but does low repairability mean low quality? If a Stadivarius was hard to repair would it then be low quality?

Yeah, I disliked that video 'cause it's ********. But the guy is pretty cool, I watched like 800 of his other videos. Learned a lot of stuff.

[thiocyclist]

Originally Posted by willsellout

As far as the rod adjustments being "mythical".....I don't know what your experience level is, but you can do a lot more to the neck with those two truss rods than you are implying. As I stated, it isn't difficult to adjust them, but two rods takes more time than a single truss rod does for the reasons I stated earlier.

Strongly agree to disagree. My experience is greater than you might think, and in general I have found the truss rods are nowhere near as independent as people say.

Originally Posted by willsellout

I haven't had to deal with a new Ric but the last Ric I worked on was from 97' and it had rubber stops with springs for each screw underneath the pickguard. This was how the pickup was raised and lowered. Have things changed? I don't know. Seeming as how resistant Ric is to change, I assume I'll find the same setup. I'll know for sure within the next week or so when I tear down my 2012.

Well apparently if they can start doing 2-piece necks they can also manage to change how the neck pickup is adjusted in spite of their resistance to change. It's just two machine screws with grommets to protect the plexi guard; no springs.


...by the way you still managed to misquote me. Where did I say a Ric is as easy to work on as a Fender J? I don't remember saying that. I gave you that the intonation takes longer (which you didn't seem to read). You also brought up the lacquered fingerboard and I will say that is another valid point that adds to the complexity of working on these basses, though not for the majority of end users.

[willsellout]

Originally Posted by thiocyclist

Strongly agree to disagree. My experience is greater than you might think, and in general I have found the truss rods are nowhere near as independent as people say.

I don't know your experience, which is why I stated as such. I make no assumptions. You could have a ton, you could have none. I don't know. What I do know (from first hand experience) is how warped you can get a Ric neck if you:
A. Try
B. Don't know any better

Well apparently if they can start doing 2-piece necks they can also manage to change how the neck pickup is adjusted in spite of their resistance to change. It's just two machine screws with grommets to protect the plexi guard; no springs.

Now if only they could manage to do something about everything else

...by the way you still managed to misquote me. Where did I say a Ric is as easy to work on as a Fender J? I don't remember saying that. I gave you that the intonation takes longer (which you didn't seem to read). You also brought up the lacquered fingerboard and I will say that is another valid point that adds to the complexity of working on these basses, though not for the majority of end users.

I paraphrased this statement:

Name anything about them that is harder to work on than a comparable Fender besides intonation.

I did. You don't find them to be issues. I do, and so do many other people. Doesn't really matter in the long run.

[thiocyclist]

Cheers man. Different strokes. Sorry you had a warped neck--why do you attribute it to the truss rods, did you torque one side all the way and totally slacken the other?

[willsellout]

Originally Posted by thiocyclist

Cheers man. Different strokes. Sorry you had a warped neck--why do you attribute it to the truss rods, did you torque one side all the way and totally slacken the other?

It wasn't my bass, luckily. It was one that was brought to me to fix. It was a case of misunderstanding how the adjustments are made. The guy made a lot of adjustments really quickly trying to correct playability issues that didn't have anything to do with the truss rods (Nut was F'd up). He also made the wrong adjustments (one clockwise, one counterclockwise)

I'm not a luthier by any stretch, but this person knew I was familiar with Ric's so he brought it over. Turns out there wasn't anything wrong with the neck other than the truss rods being out of whack. The neck came back fine after a couple days of adjustments in a stable environment. It's was a great bass once it was set up.