The Hub

I had a customer bring in a '76 Ric 4001 with a fretboard separation from the neck around the 3rd and 4th frets. I tried squeezing it closed and the board would not budge. I figured maybe dried glue, wood or schmutz was impeding the fb from laying back down so I made a special little palette knife with a hooked edge to clean it out. I instead hit metal. After a bunch of hemming and hawing since nothing was budging we opted to remove the fb.

Now some of you may be aware of this but I certainly wasn't...there's a small square of lead between the 3rd and 4th frets that apparently was put in there at the factory, according to Ric forums, to help deal with resonant dead spots along the neck. Guess they only did this for a few years in the mid 70's.

This particular chunk of lead was sitting proud of the fret board gluing surface and explains why it wasn't going back together. Figured this might be interesting and/or useful to someone experiencing this down the road in case the confusion and rage gremlins start slam dancing in your head when the board wont lay back down flat.