Toaster Covers

[jeff mills]

Please forgive me if this has been discussed already...

I was wondering if someone could point me to a good after market supplier for toaster covers.

Thanks

[soundmasterg]

You mean toaster covers for a Rickenbacker pickup? They sell them on the Rickenbacker site, and many dealers also have them in stock. Pick of the Rics is the usual one everyone recommends. I doubt if you will find aftermarket suppliers of them as if someone is selling them, they are breaking trademark law. Rickenbacker has the shape of the toaster pickup trademarked and they enforce their trademarks zealously unlike Fender and Gibson.

Greg

[jeff mills]

You mean toaster covers for a Rickenbacker pickup? They sell them on the Rickenbacker site, and many dealers also have them in stock. Pick of the Rics is the usual one everyone recommends. I doubt if you will find aftermarket suppliers of them as if someone is selling them, they are breaking trademark law. Rickenbacker has the shape of the toaster pickup trademarked and they enforce their trademarks zealously unlike Fender and Gibson.

Greg

Ok I did not realize Rickenbacker had a trademark on the toaster shape - this explains a lot...

I'm building a 4 string bass that's for personal use and would not be sold. I would like include 3 pups, my plans call for toaster style pickups and I really like the chrome toaster covers design. The outer dimensions of the covers are supposed to be L-3 1/2" x W-1 1/2" x D-5/8". If I made these covers out of wood, would I be in violation of a trademark?

I see the forum has a lot of pickup makers - I'm looking for a early 70's single coil type sound, who can I speak to about providing spes and building me three custom pickups?

Thanks

[RedHouse]

Jeff, check your PM's

[David Schwab]

Ok I did not realize Rickenbacker had a trademark on the toaster shape - this explains a lot...

I'm building a 4 string bass that's for personal use and would not be sold. I would like include 3 pups, my plans call for toaster style pickups and I really like the chrome toaster covers design. The outer dimensions of the covers are supposed to be L-3 1/2" x W-1 1/2" x D-5/8". If I made these covers out of wood, would I be in violation of a trademark?

You can use them as long as you aren't selling them.

[jeff mills]

Thanks David

[David King]

Aren't Tom Jones' Thundertrons close enough to a toaster to make this baby fly? http://www.tvjones.com/pickups/thundertron.html
I'm sure many here build pickups in those dimensions but it'd help if you were a little more specific about the sound you were looking for. "Early 70's sound" could mean so many things.

[soundmasterg]

You could also just purchase a Rickenbacker toaster pickup too. They sell those on their site and also at dealers like the one I mentioned. They come up on ebay a lot too. The toasters were only put on RIC basses until 1972. After that was the early hi-gain pickups. They both sound good but different. There is also a guy named Sergio Silva who posts on the RickResource forum a lot and also here infrequently. (His handle is different than his name is both places) He is in Portugal and makes some really nice Ric pickup clones here and there for Rickenbacker enthusiasts or will also fix RIC pickups. I can get you his info if you wanted to get in touch with him.

You can also fit the toaster covers to the hi gain pickups with some minor modifications. This is what I did in my Ric clone bass that I made for myself 10 years ago.

The toaster was used by McCartney in the late 60's and early 70's with flatwounds, whereas Chris Squire got his sounds from a similar bass with roundwounds. They also had a horseshoe pickup on their basses that may or may not have contributed to the tones. Then there is Geddy Lee who was using a Ric with roundwounds and the hi gain pickups. So there are a wide variety of tones that you can go for depending on which pickup you decide to use. They are all the same footprint so if you make your bass work for one of them, it will work for all of them, including Rickenbacker's humbuckers they make now.

Greg

[RedHouse]

... I can get you his info if you wanted to get in touch with him....

Yeah, and unlike that other forum, here your posts wont get deleted when your a competitor.

Every time I've tried to post over there about my Rick pickups (when people are asking) my posts get deleted, specially rewinding posts, it's also happened to 2 of my customers who tried to post info about my pickups.

I don't go there anymore as it's quite clear Sergio has a lock on winding/rewinding on that forum.

[David Schwab]

You could also just purchase a Rickenbacker toaster pickup too. They sell those on their site and also at dealers like the one I mentioned. They come up on ebay a lot too.

They aren't cheap though!

The toasters were only put on RIC basses until 1972. After that was the early hi-gain pickups.

I have two '73 4001s with Toasters. The March '73 bass was an older model, with the checkerboard binding, split bridge, and full width fingerboard inlays. The August '73 bass was a transitional model, with newer features but still had a toaster. But you are right, '72 was when the transition started.

[jeff mills]

There seems to be a lot of good folks here, unlike some of the other forums I've visited. I think I got what I need figured out for the pickups. However, can I reserve the right to ask a few questions later about rotary switches, cap values and rebuilding an old 1957 Partridge transformer tube amp ?

[soundmasterg]

Yeah, and unlike that other forum, here your posts wont get deleted when your a competitor.

Every time I've tried to post over there about my Rick pickups (when people are asking) my posts get deleted, specially rewinding posts, it's also happened to 2 of my customers who tried to post info about my pickups.

I don't go there anymore as it's quite clear Sergio has a lock on winding/rewinding on that forum.

It might be that the guy who runs the site is not trying to piss off John Hall, or trying to avoid a possible lawsuit since he allowed a post on there that was dealing with possible trademark infringing pickups. The Hall's have been known to go after people since they have to in order to keep their trademarks. I don't know that Sergio really does a lot of winding or rewinding for people. He hardly charges anything when he does and seems to do it more as a favor and because he enjoys it more so than trying to make lots of money at it.

If you're talking the Rickenbacker corporate forum, well then yah, stuff will get deleted there a lot....but I don't see a lot of stuff going away at the RickResource Forum a lot...but then I'm not there as much as I used to be either. Too busy with school work these days.

@ David, Yah I didn't quite go far enough in my explanation about when the toasters went away....by mid to late '73 they were gone and replaced with the hi gain. I used to have a '73 in really rough shape and it had the hi gain and no checkerboard binding. It was an alright bass. I liked the pickups on it, but the buyer insisted on having those with it when I sold it....

Greg

[Jazz P Bass]

Please forgive me if this has been discussed already...

I was wondering if someone could point me to a good after market supplier for toaster covers.

Thanks

I got mine at Walmart.
It has a cute little red heart embroidered on it.

[jeff mills]

I got mine at Walmart.
It has a cute little red heart embroidered on it.

What.?.?.?...... not pink

[jeff mills]

I wanted to thank an anonymous member for building the awesome custom pickups for the bass I completed last week. Now I have a 100% made in USA bass down to the last screw (minus the roto 77's which are my favorite flat-wounds)

Here's a couple of pics of the final assembly, I won't bore everyone with all the wood working work in progress pictures...





Thanks