Rc-4

Hi people, this is my first Pit Bull guitar but i have built previous guitars mainly from parts purchased from eBay or donated, i have always wanted a Rickenbacker but the price put me off, my kit arrived in the UK in super prompt time and i hurried to open the box and examine what i had purchased. I am delighted with my purchase and i can't wait to get under weigh with it, amazed at the fit of neck to neck pocket, i may purchase a replica tail to replace the one supplied, nothing wrong with the one supplied but i would like a replica one, i have ordered the glue and some new clamps as my old ones died on me and i am wrestling with myself over colour i should apply, my heart wants to leave it natural wood but the demon in my mind is conjuring up all kinds of ideas. My previous builds have been a Strat in olympic white with maple neck and large headstock, a telecaster that i fitted with strat trem unit and gold humbuckers, finished in graduated black edge to dark wood, all gold fittings. I customized a Squire strat with scalloped fret board and new scratch plate loaded with twin humbuckers. Current work in progress rebuilding a Shergold stereo marathon bass, wondering what to do with a flying V copy i bought for £10 that was unplayable, its now playable but looks like a dogs dinner and given up on a Washburn strat style guitar i had given me that was a train wreck of a mess. Recent repairs Les Paul by Vintage with a broken neck.
Oh just to clarify my chosen weapon is the drum kit and i have played them for more years than i care to remember, i play guitar mainly acoustic classical, steel 6 string and 12 string.

awesome stuff Paul, welcome.

sounds like you are more than able to tackle an RC build, do a diary and let us enjoy the ride with you

Cheers Stan, i have some wood dyes on order i will do some sample tests in the pic-up and control chambers to see how they take, this weekend i intend to clear out my attic space and build a new bench to set up shop on as it is heading for winter here in the UK and my lock up is too cold to work in and too expensive to heat, my plan is to carry out the build, prep up and stain the neck and body over the winter then come spring get it lacquered ready for the final build. I will photograph it at each stage and share them on here as i go along. At the moment the neck and body are slotted together i can't help but keep looking at it as the Rickenbacker bass is something of a magical shape and so unique and i can't wait to get started.
The bassist in my band is keen to see how this one turns out, i dare say it will lead to a "are you open to a sensible offer" as he calls it when he wants to buy something off you.

Welcome Paul

welcome to the forum Paul, don't think there are too many forum builders from the UK !
Reading all your background repairs and mods I'm sure you will build a cool RC-4.
Can't wait to see progress in the build diary.
Might as well include pics of your converted attic/man cave !

Update, well spent best part of yesterday sorting out my attic or trying, the wife has used it as a dumping ground, so as it will take another weekend to clear enough space to even see the area i want to build a work bench i have made a start on my guitar by setting the neck, carried out a dry run using a clamp to hold it firm, checked the rake using my metal straight edge. Happy with the look i applied the titebond and reset the clamp checking on the rake again before leaving to cure.
Needless to say the atmosphere in the house is a little frosty after i bagged up a load of stuff and threw it out without informing my other half and as it turned out some of it was items she had offered to store for other people as they didn't want their house looking a mess. I am trying to post photos but it keeps telling me they are too large and i have lost my copy of photoshop to re-size them, i did try an online free one but it still came up as file to large. I will sort it out and get some posted, as i am taking the photos of each step and putting them into a desktop folder.

Gday Paul,

I would have said welcome to the madness but from your intro it looks like you already have it :)

I'm a fellow Shergold owner, I started a Handmade Guitars thread in the Non Pitbull / General Guitar Discussion section perhaps you might share the Maraton with us in that thread.

Good luck with the Ricci a few really nice ones have graced the build pages over the last year or so

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Photo of neck set, extra glue into the wells either side of the neck for my home made hardwood filler, saw dust from a hardwood this happens to be walnut, mixed with Titebond into a paste and built up allowing each layer to dry, this should give the neck more stability.

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Photo of last mix of filler, leave it to set hard.
More supplies arrived, micro fine rubbing papers, masking tape and various wood dyes, still unsure of the colour i want, it looks so good in its natural state but i feel it needs darkening. I am toying with the idea of doing the top black edge into colour burst and same on the face of head stock with a black ebony sides and back, this all of course depends on how well the wood takes colour.

Looking great Paul - as for apps - I use Irfanview to resize - will allow batch resizing and its free.

nice one Paul so you set the neck very early in the build. Have you done any sanding yet ?
Will be more awkward to work on being one piece but the neck/body transition should be smoother.
The neck pickup with that putty make sure the neck pickup fits, you may have to drill out a section for the mounting screws

Welcome Paul. The RC-4 is looking good already. I also wondered about that neck pickup and room for the mounting screws - might be worth a look now rather than when the finish is on. I'm eagerly awaiting an RC-4 kit myself!

cheers,
Gav.

Greetings people, yes i set the neck before doing any other work as i wanted the glue to go onto clean timber, the pic-up screws when fitted to the scratch plate should have plenty of clearance if not two small holes drilled into the filler will resolve that issue.
i have started the sanding, i've started with P1200 as the body and neck are in really good order, just one slight blemish in the rear of the body, that will need a little more work. i will give it a few more passes working down to P1500 or even P2000 before looking to start finishing.
Working this way setting the neck at the start makes sanding a little more awkward but not impossible, after all Rickenbacker manage it :D

Update, okay after a couple of days rubbing down i took the plunge and applied a base colour, this being Rustins ebony, which i have used on previous projects, i just did the top of the body this highlighted an issue of where the body had been glued together during manufacture in the factory and the glue had remained on the surface and won't take the dye, also a knot in the wood has shown up, not visible previously, this again won't take dye, so i have set about rubbing it down again while i rethink, the glue issue is easy to resolve the knot issue i have the option to scar the knot with fine lines to get dye to sit in and disguise it.

hey Paul, some good progress, time for pics mate!

As for the glue, you have the right idea, careful if it is on the top, the cap is very thin.
As for the knot, they are part and parcel of timber, there are a few options - live with it, highlight it or hide it. Staining it might prove to be difficult, and typically knots are darker and denser. Depends a bit on where it is, and with most things in our builds, only we notice the minor flaws (or even consider them flaws...)
Post up a pic, the collective brains trust will offer some solutions

I will pop some pictures up when i have something worth sharing :) at the moment it is a small patch about the size of a little finger nail, that won't take colour, if the top rubs through while sanding i have pondered about an exotic veneer top on body and head stock.
I'll keep you posted.

Greetings all, well spent the time since my last post trying various options with my project and have come to the conclusion i should have stayed with what my heart told me and opted for the natural wood finish, i did try various options of wood dyes but in the end i have opted the all black look, pretty boring i know but the ebony dye covers the imperfections in the timber, it will be a translucent finish so the wood grain will still show through.

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the two photo have been taken after a base coat of Rustins Dark Oak this highlighted all problem areas so i spent most of yesterday evening rubbing them out before adding coat of Rustins Ebony wood dye, on the photo of the rear of the body are the small knots that don't take dye, there was two of these on the front but i have disguised them, so i will do the same with the back. I will rub down with P1200 and then apply a top coat of final colour before looking to seal it, not sure if i will lacquer or try tru-oil finish.

Hi Paul

So far it looks pretty good. Black ain't a bad color for this kit and TO pops the grain like you would not believe.

If you are trying to mask small imperfections that are not taking color - especially like 1mm wide spots, holes etc you could do this carefully with a black permanent marker. I did that with my black RC-4. At least if your finish will be black enough. The TO will make it a lot darker so the spots will blend in the grain. Just do this carefully cause these can't be easilly undone.

I think you will be satisfied with the black cause it looks really sexy when finished. Good work so far. :)

Cheers Arzi, yeah i'm liking the black the more i look at it, the knot issue i resolve by using a fine craft knife to cut very fine lines across the knot so it acts like wood grain and takes the dye, its worked well on the top.

Hello Paul, welcome! The RC-4 is coming along well and have to agree that black looks great on this style kit.

interesting technique for hiding knots, must file that one away, thanks

Now who the F**K has put that avatar on my posts?

haha Arzi one of the moderators would have changed your avatar, do you like it ?

don't worry whenever I log on I have no idea what my avatar will be as the mods love playing jokes on me - no idea why haha

@ Paul the black stain looks excellent on the RC-4

I'll keep that avatar if not for enything else - can't think of a better one.... :)

haha no worries Arzi, unless you want the mods to change your avatar to a pair of pink fluffy slippers like what Pest got ? bwhahahahah

A prank once a day will keep the depression away...

Two in a row and everyone will know...

Three is a hat trick and at least one of them will think you're a pr*ck...

Reason in all is best - unless you're Pest....

That RC looks excellent. i went with the same finish on my ESB4. Once the varnish is on it really pops. Great work and glad you managed to overcome the knot issue.

Thanks for the comments, spent the evening giving it a rub down and another coat of Rustins Ebony, after it dried i took a Stanley blade and cleaned up some of the binding to body and neck.

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Photographing the guitar is good for spotting stuff that won't show up under normal light but when the flash is used it helps highlight issues, Not happy with the neck splice on the head stock which shows a stark contrast in shades

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i will have to work on this to blend it a little better.

Mail Call;
Post arrived yesterday, Made in Japan, arrived via USA on eBay.

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Now that this has arrived i can mark out the body to rout out where needed to fit the tail.

Nice bridge. I see you've already set the neck..... I hope your neck angle works out.

Hey Paul, nice looking bridge, are these string through body or the string enters from the rear ?

Before you do any routing to lower the bridge I'd clamp the bridge roughly in position and put your E and G strings on and check the string action to work out if you need to lower the bridge and roughly by how much.

From memory Pablo's RC-4 build he had to shim the neck so the action wasn't too high ? He probably used a different bridge, can't remember

I did use a different bridge, but @Lunaticthighs used one of these on his rc4 and needed to shim too.

I used the same bridge on mine and with the neck straight (no relief), saddles lowered, the action was close to correct, so I shimmed the neck to make sure there was adjustment in both directions. Think the shim was 1.1 or 1.2mm from memory. Also the outer winding on the the E string that comes with the kit doesn't reach all the way to the nut with this bridge, but can be used for basic alignment.

Grant

Greetings all, the tail is strings through the the unit not through the guitar, working out the location of the tail i am going to be masking tape to guitar top, clamp into place as suggested, use my steel straight edge in place of the strings to line up the unit to get it centered and set for length for intonation, drive in a couple of screws then use the strings to double check, once i'm happy i will then draw the out line of the plate then add the rebates where needed.
Yes i did set the neck before doing any other work, to do this i clamped body and neck and then used a straight edge steel to check on line and rake also making sure the truss rod was backed off.

good work Paul. Every time I look at your avatar you look like the devil haha - just need the horns mate !

I'd allow to be able to have the strings touching the last fret or just above when the saddles are set at the lowest setting

Greetings Wokkaboy, your not the first to comment on my photo, i use the same one on facebook, i always add "when you see the horns your in serious sh!t" :)

coming along well Paul, another nice RC in the making

Greetings people.
Prepping up ready to fit tail unit, after applying masking tape i set location using clamp, steel straight edge and measure. checked with top and bottom string before tracing round the tail unit, drew freehand slightly inside and trimmed with a craft knife leaving masking tape template. Ready to be routed/carved out, i may go down to my lock up tomorrow and dig out my woodworking chisels.

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nice progress Paul, be careful not to route the bridge too low. Good luck !

The whole tail unit sits on the top of the body, the only part that is to be carved out is the hatch marked area.

Greetings, Quick update, couldn't find my chisels to scoop out the space for the tail, so used a Stanley knife cutting into small cubes and chipping out got through it with still all fingers intact, opened the drawer and found my pack of chisels damn typical, anyway gave it a final rub down and i have started with the tru-oil, photos to follow as i have left my camera in work.