Rick neck width

[bw_user_name]

To all the Rick fans,

Is there a difference in neck widths ?

Played one ages ago, sounded great but felt like a 3/4 bass. Is there a wide neck version ?

[Musky]

I'm not sure about about neck width, but Rickenbacker have certainly messed about with the neck profile over the years, which might make it feel like a wider neck.

60's necks were very slim (and breakable) and were strengthened at the end of the decade with a bigger volute at the headstock and a chuckier profile. Rickenbacker seem to have changed the neck profile almost on a whim since the beginning of the eighties, though nothing major.

Ricks are still handmade (or should that be hand crafted) so it may be that they deliberately allow differences in neck profiling. I know Gordon Smith guitars are made like this to give the player a bit of choice according to their personal preferences.

[bw_user_name]

Hmmm, interesting,

I'll go out and play a few, see how they feel.

[Bassassin]

Rick necks are weird in that they're a very uniform width & depth all the way up - meaning the narrow string spacing over the pickups is one of the many things people find odd about them.

That said, I think that the profile varies more than the actual fretboard width - as Musky says, this has been changed a number of times over the years, and it seems current production is back to the classic thin necks from the older 4001s.

Ricks aren't hand-made as such - necks & bodies are produced using modern CNC routers, but the whole approach to building is much more hands-on than most high profile manufacturers, because it's still such a small operation.

There was a sort of survey on www.rickresource.com where people sent in their 4001/4003 neck dimensions to try & establish the changes. They'll likely know all about any differences in fretboard width there have been.

Jon.