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Kim Z. Turtenwald's avatar

Richard Libutti from the band Sirsy has the most “reliced” Rickenbacker I have ever seen. It’s a 2006 330 in Jetglo. He said it started “chipping” a few months after receiving it and he did not abuse it. Whole sections of paint are missing all over the guitar, exposing the maple wood. You can enter the band name in a search on the internet to view him with the guitar.

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Woody Cross's avatar

I’ve been saying that RIC needs to introduce an ambered/tinted maple color to their lineup since they switched to non yellowing clearcoats.

Those mapleglos from the 70s/80s look fabulous, brand new “white” maple not so much.

Also I’m curious, some of the limited run “satin” finishes, are those also conversion varnish?

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Andy White's avatar

Agreed on an amber mapleglo! As far as satin finishes go…I believe it’s the same finish without all the buffing. You can absolutely buff a matte finish into a gloss…

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Woody Cross's avatar

Wasn’t sure, as I’ve never seen one in person. My favorite is the oil finish on my Cheyenne.

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Steve Lee's avatar

I have a 2007 360/12c63 that experienced the curing issue. I actually like that as it feels almost like semi-matte finish. What happened there?

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Mark's avatar

Who would have thought that there would be that many varying factors! Good job

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Vincent's avatar

Great discussion, Andy!

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Dennis's avatar

Hi Andy. Great post, as always. What’s not mentioned in the post is that some of the guitars/basses produced during the period of transition to UV cured finishes have serious finish problems. I know because I’m the unfortunate owner of two basses from this period. It seems that Rick hadn’t quite perfected the process when they started using it.

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