So.. I just trade my NS for a grand stick! So good news there. I had actually forgotten how tight the spacing was! What a difference between my grand 10 and the 12. But that is not really the question.

My question is this. As the Railboard is a grand and with the bar pick ups the neck and pick ups are the same. Is there an option to just buy a second, head nuts and tail section and just swap back and forth between a 10 and a 12?

I'd like to help but I might need a little clarification on what you're hoping to achieve.

I guess the question is ... if somebody were to buy a 10 string Railboard. Is there an easy way to “upgrade” to a 12 string?

As the neck and pickups are common to both. Can you just bolt on the other components?

I guess you mean to ask if one can buy a railboard without the pickup house? Because then you may have one 10 stringed railboard and one 12 stringed railboard and just swap the pup block between them. ---- ? I can't see any reason that wouldn't work.

Over here I have an extra Stickup pup block and three PASV-4 blocks that switch between for different sounds in different projects. But I've read that the railboard's block has a different size and is not interchangeable. I'd really like a railboard with a PASV-4 block, but that seems impossible.

Pasv4 or rblock4 yes!

I tend to stay on the lower pickups.

as far as 10 to 12 I know the wooden sticks, my 12 Grand is a bit wider than my 10 grand. Not modular

Not sure if that's the case with the rail boards.
I believe the 12 strings are a bit wider, I believe the specs are on the website..
Good luck.

4 pickup railboard or pasv4 yes!..

Th R-Block is the only pickup compatible with the Railboard. From what I understand, the pickup itself is a bit of miracle in that much of the electronics are off to the side of the instrument, like pontoons on a boat, not housed nicely in a single block like the stickup, pasv-4 or actv-2.

http://stick.com/instruments/railboard/images/rb_pickupinside.jpg

I recall that the R-Block was the final piece of the puzzle for the Railboard and that Emmett has stated (loosely quoted), "it's impossible to have any other pickup", the details of which related to how the integrity of the instrument could withstand being any thinner.

http://stick.com/instruments/railboard/images/rb_belthook.jpg

I believe that the 10 and 12 string pickups are not the same size (geez, I suppose I could check this but I'm at work lol...), so moving a 10 string pickup to a 12 string instrument would mean that there are not sufficient coils for the 11th and 1th strings.

Hotwswapping pickups on wooden instruments, as Per does, only requires that you have holes drilled for both the ACTV-2 or the Pasv-4 / stickup as the two latter share the same mounting location. It's a delicate operation and might require some fine tuning to ensure the pickups are as close as they can be to the strings.

Rock and Roll mean gene.

If they are the same neck. Then the pick ups should be the same. Same neck, just adding two strings. So at least in my mind the Railboard pick up should be common to both the 10 and 12. As nothing has changed except for the spacing of the strings.


I assume the the head pieces are the same just drilled out for 12 as opposed to 10. So fitting should be the same.

So, to me, hypothetically at least. If I were to order a 12 string rail board. I should be able to by swapping out the nuts. And maybe the tail piece be able to do 6+6 or 5+5?

I'm fairly certain that the 10 and 12-string Railboard necks are different widths.

I stand corrected . 1/4” wider. 3-1/2 vs 3-3/4
I could sworn I read that the width was the same.