The Steel Guitar Forum

This poor man ...

He emails me about a triple neck console Ricky ... saying he just bought it and the strings are way out of "balance".




I just cracked into and well ... take a look at this picture ...



That "disk" is a very strong disc magnet ... implanted into the fake horseshoe.

Since this is the only source of magnetism (the rest of the horseshoe is just plain steel) ... only the strings that are under these disks receive the needed "juice".

You can also see below ... where the pole pieces are added to a six string bobbin ... but that ain't the issue.



Those are the black plastic baseplates from a modern Ricky Bass ...

I would guess that someone has switched out the real magnets ... and placed these "fakes" ... probably from a reissue bass ... in their place.

Ricky bass players are paying well over $500 for a set of real magnets ... and this triple neck produced 3 of these criminal acts (yes all three sets have that disk).

It had to be a "recent hack job/ripoff" ... because no one would have originally bought this "as is" ... half of the strings are either dead or mostly dead ... with a few that are real powerful.

I've seen late 60's "shoes" that were poor quality steel ... charging to about 1/2 of what a good set of cobalt steel ones do ...

But I've never seen this "implanted disk" before ...

This surely is a factory install (it's done real well) ... but I can only imagine its from a bass ... which only needs flux sent to two strings.

I have seen the top (flat black part) of the bobbin that is a six string with two poles added by Rickenbacker for their 8 string guitars. Those two extra ploes are set way off, one to each edge almost off of the top. I guess it was sort of a one size fits all on some of their pickups.

Interesting discovery. Are these standard Ric reissue FAUX bass horseshoes offered in one of their RETRO basses at one time?

You can't see it ... unless you get under there with a flashlight ... and know what you are looking for ...

Hence the purpose of this post ...

A high quality "camouflage" job.

As for the poles ... thats a standard ploy by RIC. At least there are 8 ... sometimes they used a 7 pole on an 8 string ...

The man wants me to fix it ... he's not interested in putting in a "modern pickup".

I have a plan ... ... using these fakes.

I love a good challenge ... but, I do feel sorry for this fellow.

Can the steel fauxs be charged/magnetized?

No ...

Steel needs to be heat treated ... to retain any magnetism.

Even then ... if the alloy does not contain components that have high coercivity ... ie: cobalt ...

Then the hardened alloy will retain its magnetism ... but it will charge much lower than an alloy with cobalt.

A good quality tool steel or aircraft alloy ... will only charge to half of that ... of a cobalt containing alloy.

Hence me turning to neodymium-iron-boron ...

These are simply mild steel (probably 1018) ... that were drilled out and that magnet disc place in ... then bent ... then chromed.

What I plan to do ... is mill off about 1/16" from the underside of each flange ... then place a uniform layer of magnetic material (neodymium-iron-boron) ... onto the upper and lower flange.

That sounds like a great way to fix the phony horseshoes. Glue on some magnetism
That guy is lucky you have a fix for the thing.

Well ... they were not chrome-plated mild steel.

They are either 400 series stainless (ferromagnetic) or some 4000 series alloy ... cause they were a real BEAR to mill out.





The good thing is ... I could buff them back up ... after I was done millin'.



I also found one of the three bobbins is damaged and has a short ... I'll have to repair and rewind this one.

These are the later bobbins wound to around 6 K with # 42 (verses the old ones wound to 1.5 - 2.5 K with # 38 )



I filed down all the pole tops "flush" with the bobbins. They were irregularly staggered ... and would never adjust well.

Plus the freakin' plastic Bass base plates are all butchered ... so I'll have to fill in & re-drill and tap ...



That's my aluminum steel guitar mounting plate ... to show the difference.

All in all ... a real mess ...

But I'm determined now ...

And I have to get it done by Monday ... when Grandma leaves and I resume my daily duties as "Diaper Boy" ...

And here I thought the wife was the doctor. This fellow probably doesn't realize he has the finest Ric surgeon in the world working on his baby. Cutting edge technology and perfect craftsmanship. Wow!

Rick, you deserve the good guy of the year award! He's lucky to have found you.

You are right about that Mark

Ever seen a 6-er converted to an 8 ... ???



Rewound ...



Rippin' the shorted coil out ... I found it was # 43 ... so thats what I used (per the owners request).

One coil was 7.1 K , the other was 6.7 K and my rewind was 6.8 K ... how's that for "mileage"



I also layed in all the neodymium ... they came out at about 350 gauss midgap (A fully charged Ricky is at around 210 gauss midgap) ...

I couldn't resist

Now it's flux density is uniform and these won't be any of that "1 & 8 string wimpy-ness" ...



Just gotta reassemble everything now ...

Rick,

Is that how Ric built all their 1950's - 60's 8 string steel pickups? If not, why on some and not others?

I don't know ???

Seems like they had 7 string bobbins and 6 string bobbins ...

Then when they needed an 8 ... the drilled and stuck on the additional poles to the 6.

I've seen 7 string bobbins that used steel # 6-32 bobbin mounting screws as two out of the 7 poles ... so generally, making an 8 was more feasable out of a 6-er.

I've heard they sometimes just used a 7 pole on an 8 string and aligned the strings between poles ... ... bad idea !!!

I do mostly 7 string stuff, and like you say Rick poles 2 and 6 are also the mounting screws, which have to be adjusted for height by adding washers under the screw heads on the bottom of the mounting plate. Lately I have been using shorter screws and putting a short set screw above it for adjusting poles 2 and 6, which seems to work OK. I use 8-32 set screws for all the other poles, about 9/16" long.

I have had three Ric consoles and all had different pole configurations? My 1962, 208, D8 has screw heads for all 8 poles and a much larger bobbin than the DW16 or DW12.

I wonder if before 1953 when A. Ric sold out, all the pickups were more uniform?

Rick,

I didn't see much room outside of pole pieces 1 & 8.

How did that affect the rewind? In my (very limited) experience, the closer you get to the outside of the bobbin, the more likely it is the wire will "jump the rail" so to speak. How do you avoid that?

the closer you get to the outside of the bobbin, the more likely it is the wire will "jump the rail" so to speak. How do you avoid that?

I use a technique ... passed on to me by the greatest winder of all time ...



Close one eye ... line the open one up with the wire ... and hope for the best

I wonder if before 1953 when A. Ric sold out, all the 8 string pickups were more uniform/built better? Or were the 8 strings always the bastard child of the Ric line? Does anybody know?

I read that around 1940 Rickenbacher changed it's Bakelite formula by adding plasticizers so it was not so brittle. Do the earlier models chip or fracture easier than the post 1940 Bakelite bodies? In other words, maybe the later models are better utility instruments?

This is a disturbing trend now that people are buying Rickenbacker steels to get the magnets to use for bass pickups. Since the Rickenbacker reissue bass pickups didn't have actual horseshoe magnets the Beatlemaniacs are raping old steels to feed their desire for the tone Paul McCartney got back in the day. These frankenstein bass pickups have been selling for absurd prices on ebay lately.

Well, it's all done ...

Things were going splendidly ...

Until I ran into my arch enemy ... The Dreaded Slotted Bridge



Besides the bad positioning of poles 1,8 ... whoever cut these slots ... apparently didn't even try to align them to the poles (which is critical on Rickys).

So I removed the bridges and hand filed/sanded/buffed them ... now the alignment won't be an issue.



Anyway ... I've done my best ...

Getting the spacing correct and getting the strings from doing the buzzing is the biggest pain of most projects.
And nut files aren't made for every gauge string we use on steel guitars, so the battle to get that last little buzz out goes on... and on....
Let's see, that noise is coming from the bridge,....no it's doing it at the nut..... well, it's both!!!

I hope the owner realizes that you brought back the mojo to his steel. It no doubt sounds better than it ever has in its life.

Rick,
I have an extremely early 8 string silver Hawaiian (ca '37, one knob, w/plated nut & bridge), That has what appears to be a six string PU with poles added just as you have done.
http://freefilehosting.net/show/MTI3NDM5

I was not aware that a 8 string SH was made by Rickenbacher in 1937. I see the 37' 6 strings often. Yours, if factory original, would be very rare. Please post a photo of the head and tuners.

What's odd is that the bobbin flatwork material is not hard to shape and not expensive. You would think the Ric factory would have built an 8 pole pickup instead of mouse on two extra poles onto a 6 pole piece of flatwork material. Very interesting.