Rickenbacker Factory Tour: Model 330 Guitar & Model Bass Construction

Everyone, I'm Charles for Premier Guitar and it's exciting to be here at the Rickenbacker

factory

in Santa Ana, California. Rickenbacker, which is one of the pillars of the history of the electric

guitar

in the United States, celebrates its 80th anniversary this year and let's go. To get inside, we'll visit with Rickenbacker President and CEO John Hall and take a look at his own history and how they do things, so let's get inside. It is my pleasure to introduce you to Rickenbacker President and CEO, John Hall. John, how are you? doing good, we are very happy to have you here.

Thank you so much. John will take us inside. Let's see how they do things here. What are we going to see first? I think we'll start in the carpentry shop and then. Unfortunately, this is not very impressive because we are late enough that we have already cut most of our wood, but we bring large quantities of mainly maple and cut it. all as early as we can get it into a

guitar

the same day you told me before what percentage approximately of the wood you bring is maple and what was that again oh I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't. 85 90 percent that is our main wood, we think it is the perfect wood to make a guitar, very stable, has a good finish and most importantly it comes from a plantation or a farm, it is not an endangered species extinction, is something that can be replaced in about ten years in an agricultural environment.

It's called a jump saw, we'll see in a second, it almost completely hides access to the blade. Now, what are we cutting here? We are cutting blanks for the neck. Here we're just cutting off the ends, cutting them all the way through. proper length low protects the blade you don't even see it holds the piece and cuts it very well you really have to work hard to hurt yourself with this one we started with a rectangular piece it's just two pieces of wood from left to right and half came out of the same board immediately to the side when it was cut, flipped and glued, then it goes to a CNC machine and first it is completely carved from the inside, this is something that is done very, very Unlike almost any guitar maker, there is something that is essentially Rickenbacker and so it's building a guitar from the inside out, actually now what we take we'll put a laminate back like this on it and allow it to dry and then this will go into the CNC machine as a unit will cut the shape into the outside and the whole inside will still be open so with all its conical chambers, we're going to make all the little fine cuts on the top of the instrument, so we'll get some pickup cutouts and all the little details like the soundhole, instead of To create completely new

model

s, we were trying to transfer manual production of older instruments to the CNC, so our procedure was actually quite simple, we went and found what you would call the quintessential version of that

model

, the instrument that sounded the best, that it played better, it looked better, we created a 3D digital model of that instrument and we kept making that instrument over and over again in code.

What the machine runs is based on that 3D model, so there's a lot more capability than we have here with CNC and I think that's why we made the move. Its capacity and repeatability did not necessarily increase production, although that is a secondary benefit after leaving. This inch CNC machine is starting to be a complete looking instrument, it's a solid piece of wood that responds well, it still has all of its tone chambers inside all the different cutouts needed to get through the wiring, it's finally starting to look like to a guitar, obviously, is coming in. to sand a little more here, this is a 360, so compared to the 330, it had two additional operations: one, the edge was shaped to that well con

tour

ed edge, also a binding was applied to the part Later, the binding groove was cut and then made by hand. applied creates a nice look on the back of the instrument, we have several different ways of making necks, this is the slower ball cutting method, where we essentially take a ball nose router and move it through the wood, moving it gradually at each moment.

So that we can get that shape, we also have other programs that have special cutters that can remove the wood and make the neck shape in one pass, but there are pros and cons that both typically high production units will use the specialized one. Pitch cutter in lower production will use the ball cutter, but it also depends on the geometry involved. These are three 13x, which is a glued insert type neck, so we have a full set of wood here laminated with the Reta fide maple in the middle and two. laminations on the headstock, this will be inserted into a body a little later in the process.

Our scheduling is such that at any given time in the shop we are making a family of instruments that could last an entire week, or it could be several weeks in a row. actually, but it is much more efficient for us if we are making instruments that are all roughly related, this will be the final product of the CNC machine, the next structure completely finished, ready to sand, it does not have a fingerboard yet, but you can see the alignment holes that ensure it aligns perfectly on the CNC machine every time we have ratified maple on the headstock and stringer, so it is an all maple structure, although it has the color difference, they are all the same type . made of maple, all our instruments have double truss rods.

The truss rod slot has already been placed here, the shaft goes in through the top and will fit into the head, but it's a little hard to see, but there are two maple slots all the way through. here and this is done in a small arc and the decorative strips that are on top have been inserted and glued and then trimmed flush so that we have a channel running the entire length of the instrument and the other end of the truss rod will be placed down here. It is perfectly possible on a Rickenbacker to unscrew the nuts and slide the stem out, so if you want to replace the stem in the future, you don't have to remove the fingerboard.

It's a pretty easy job. service so this is Ben Hall this is John's son and Ben is actually the

factory

manager, that's correct and you are overseeing all the various processes here, it also looks like you are tackling one yourself here, what about Is all this about this table? What we do is we assemble the stems of these pairs right here and we wrap them in shrink tubing and we'll take them here and we'll use a heat gun and this will shrink them enough to fit into the truss rod channels of our guitars. and obviously this is a very important process, we don't want it loose, we want it rattling and this will ensure a perfect fit and ensure that we have optimal adjustability on the guitars, plus we put the truss rods in as soon as they are.

We're finished in the woodworking department, so they have to be inside the guitar before it goes into the finishing area because otherwise we have to put the truss rods up here, which we used to do for years, but we feel It wasn't the best place to do it. Do it so we do it before I feel pain, even on the guitar. I think the shape of the headstocks, the shape of the neck, all those things are a little bit like women's fashion, it changes the community here, but yeah, we've gone back to some of those styles.

That's what people seem to prefer, but I have no doubt that in a few years everyone will say they prefer the bigger head suckers and we'll get back to that, the fretboard process is pretty simple, here we create a blank fretboard in this case, boo. Binga and it goes on the CNC machine and the CNC machine transforms that blank into something a little more sophisticated like this. It has some cutouts and has some locating pins on the back so we know exactly where everything is located on the machine. at that stage we add inlays the inlays are nothing more than a piece of plastic that is inserted into the slot, glued in place and returned to the machine, the machine trims the slot from the edge which is where the binding will go but it also prepares The fingerboard crowning does all of that in a single pass and properly shapes the entire fingerboard.

I see that we have two types of wood here, in fact we have Caribbean rosewood and a piece of bubinga, this is probably a laggard of something, but we tend to use Caribbean rosewood more and more because we like the uniformity, the difference in the grain and its appearance is a little more brown than reddish, as you can see this is a very high tech method of creating fret dots. Basically, it's just a small rod that you insert into the molding and the CNC machine will trim and shift the blocks of wood to use as a hammer.

Yes, that's a good question. I'm sure there's a special charm associated with that particular thing. blocking, it's really just a relatively simple and easy way to make sure the glue is applied evenly and distributed correctly over the surface of the wood. We don't use too much or too little. So, here you are laminating the fingerboards all the way to the necks. There is actually a small dimple in the neck and a corresponding mating hole in the fingerboard, so the fingerboard will always line up with the neck exactly the way the model and CNC machine predicted it would on the halves. left and right. of the body are attached to the neck here, it's just a matter of gluing them together and letting the glue dry.

Very basic aliphatic resin glue is used. No, there's no magic here and it really makes it a great instrument because all the tension is really contained in that. the center piece of wood doesn't encompass the neck joint, it's the entire tone, it all stays there in the center on that solid piece of wood and it's a technique that we've been using forever, obviously, if a neck were to break on big. problem, it would be a big problem. I suppose in those circumstances it would be nice to bolt on a neck and I have to say that in production it would probably be better to be able to treat the bodies and necks separately, but this is simply a better way.

In my opinion, to make an instrument, in the main part of the woodworking shop we saw tons and tons of 330 guitars, but in the store next door we are seeing 4,000 3 instruments and that is simply because today is Monday they started manufacturing. 330 in the carpentry shop, these would be the instruments from Friday and obviously we were making four thousand three bases, then at this stage onwards everything is by hand, a lot of automation in the mill there, but from this At the moment everything is basic and dirty manual work. it's just cleaning up the binding a little where it meets the threads, a little bit of hand work needed to make it look good in this area, we are providing all the coatings on the instrument, it starts with several coats of sealant and then if it's a finish type shading that is applied by hand to obtain the coloration that in fire glow shading or any first type shading, our materials are now almost completely solvent free and will never dry as such, but they contain a photoinitiator and after instrument . it's sprayed here, we put it in an oven, which is a misnomer because there's really no heat involved, and we expose it to ultraviolet light.

The UV light activates the photoinitiator and cures the finish much like the way dentists bond in your mouth. Doing it this way is not only excellent for production because it saves a lot of time, it is also a tremendous ecological step because that solvent now does not go up the pile or exit into the atmosphere; we are containing almost all materials here and reusing them. The instrument rotates for about three minutes and forty-five seconds and it will come out cured. We don't mask everything intentionally, the reason is that it allows us to literally go back to create an edge line between the color and the binding and they take the razor blade and with a lot of practice and skill in this they are able to create that perfectly sharp delineation between the color of the instrument and the binding.

I've been doing the same thing, even doing that the same way. That's how it's been for all these years since we started binding, which must have been in the '50s. At some point we use a lot of automation here where we can, but there are some things like this that really can't be done any other way. that with great skill and by hand to achieve the absolutely perfectly smooth finish that we need, we go through a series of levels of sanding in which we continually reach finer and finer sandpapers, this is basically leveling out the finish that there is.

Some inconsistency when sprayed to finish and this levels out nice and smooth but you end up with this nice milky looking color immediately before moving on to the polishing stage which then polishes everything to a shine. This is actually one of the most difficult jobs in the workshop requiring an immense amount of skill to polish the instruments properly. We spent about an hour and a half with eachinstrument, varies a little depending on the model and we use different types of compounds. Start with something that is quite abrasive to work through the system until it is pure wax and it is the way to achieve a really deep looking finish that we are known for.

You mentioned that there is a lot of experience in this room. We currently have a father and son working in this room and previously we also had grandfather, so it is something that has been passed down here, we have an instrument with an exceptionally shiny deep looking finish and it is something that was achieved not so much with materials but with a lot knowledge and time, the biggest investment is the finishing, it's the time it takes again, everything completely handmade at this point and I don't think there are many people who can compare to it. For the quality of finishing that we consistently deliver every day of the week, a lot of circuitry found in other guitars are produced in Asia, wired together as assemblies and imported to the US for inclusion in guitars, we do it all here, it is very important to us that we use components Americans where we can change the Chicago artisanal connectors, are the CTS capsules, some of which are produced in Taiwan, but they are all components custom made for us, but we believe. on doing as much as we can here in the US with our fellow products Jeff Rhodes here's dad's red Rhodes and Fame amp mod and he's known for his pretty famous pickups: Velvet Hammer pickups, it's pretty amazing to me That such a thin piece of wire can be wound at such speed and that, of course, is something the computer can do: modulate the tension throughout the cycle.

Here we believe that it is really important to have high precision in the winding of the pickups, of course, the only thing is that we are going to do it again here in the US. Almost all of this type of work is done in Asia or Mexico currently others here we start the final assembly of the instrument, the keys, the pickups, the guards, all the different parts come together here All of these are the exception of the German made key wines. All parts we make here in the USA we also go to a lot of trouble to color match the chrome.

Some brass pieces. Some are die-cast zinc. Summer steel. We vary the nickel-chromium content so that they are all the same chrome color, we compare them to the chrome necklace that is made in Germany. This is the final detail of the instrument, getting ready to prepare it for shipping, she is just making sure that all the fingerprints and polishing and dust on the instrument are cleaned here, she is also inspecting it for small imperfections and it is possible that from time to time it is necessary to do a little touch-up work and this is the stage where we want to detect that, let's continue here. nameplate on how to end up as a business, yes, we are enough to be a Rickenbacker, so we are seeing the finished product, John, yes, this is one of today's productions that will be coming out, all of these instruments will be shipping tomorrow and interestingly enough , about 60% of everything.

We produce outside the US a fairly high percentage of export. I like this one. I'm a

bass

ist, so I think it will be good. Thank you very much for showing us John. I appreciate it. This is Charles for a top-notch guitar.