The Steel Guitar Forum

A friend of mine here in Hawaii, slack key legend Ledward Kaapana, just gave me this guitar. His brother, Ned (Nicky Boy) used to gig all over Waikiki with Jerry Byrd and Jerry gave it to him. Ned's no longer with us and the guitar sat in it's case for 25 years and now it's mine.
It's a Rickenbacker 208 built in April of '69. It's in very good condition but the pickups are wonky. One is very bassy while the other is the opposite, very thin and trebly. The output on both is minimal and one is almost silent. The volume and tone pots control both pickups and seem to have good range.
So I'd like some advice as to where I can send out the pickups to have them rewired to factory specs. Oddly, they are not horseshoes and the pickup covers are just that, non magnetic covers.
I don't know if Jerry ever played it or if it was simply part of his collection but I'd like to bring it back to it's full glory.
Aloha & thank you.

Cool guitar! My Ricky 4003 has the same faux magnet cover.
Maybe Tom Brantley for the rewinds?

http://tombrantleyrewinds.com/lap-steels-1-1

Great! That seems to be the ticket! Tom certainly appears to have the experience. I'll contact him now. Mahalo Nic!

Tom rewound a wonky pickup I had in a double 8 Rick a few years ago--he was fast, and the rewound pickup was like new.

Dave

Thanks Dave. Email request sent to Tom.

If you have an ohm meter you could determine quite easily if the pickup coils have gone open. If you measure greater than say 20Kohms at the jack with volume and tone all the way up, they have gone open and will need a rewind. The other situation might be the magnets have lost their magnetism though unlikely.
Bassey pickup could be by design with capacitors in play. I'm not sure about the Rick design though.

That's a nice instrument with a cool history.
Hope you get it into good playing shape.

Very cool Chuck. Good mojo for sure! 🐶

Wow!