B.C. Rico, named after it's founder-Bernardo Chavez Rico, was the name used to denote the imported line of cheaper guitars offered by the B.C. Rich company. Having been manufacturing guitars for nearly four decades now, the B.C. Rich company has offered, and continues to offer some radical design instruments. The Japanese imported guitars were dropped after a few hundred units were said to have made it into the U.S. due to a lawsuit brought by the Rico Reed Company.
In the 1980s Bernardo Rico moved away from the business and license production to the New Jersey company Class Axe. Although they were manufacturing the guitars extremely cheaply, they were doing so at the cost of quality. Using layered plwood for the bodies, very poor sanding and paint work, combined with numerous other complaints, caused the brand to suffer greatly. When Rico realized the failure, he again took the reins of the company.
Since 2003, B.C. Rich had been using their own pickups, which were an improvement over the generic models that had previously been used, but still weren't always matched closely with some of the radically-styled instruments. Beginning in 2006, the company went to Rockfield brand pickups which could be better matched to the player's requirement and the guitar's design.
The Acrylic Series guitars were originally manufactured with an acrylic see-through body, with a maple nech and wooden headstock. They now feature an acrylic headstock also. The line is popular and visually interesting as the internal electronic parts can be seen. Since acrlyic is more dense that wood, the guitars are considerable heavier, not a positive characteristic for most players.
Also in 2006 B.C. Rich introduced the IT (Invisibolt Technology) series. In this series the neck is bolted inside the body to look like a neck-through, but neck joint is still visible. This combines the elements of both bolt-on and neck-through designs.
B.C. Rich, like Gibson and Rickenbacker before them, used a true neck through body design in many of their instruments. Also incorporated was battery-powered active electronics. Neal Moser, as a contract employee from 1974 until 1985, was the developer for the electronics.
B.C. Rich guitars come in many shapes such as the very-different Fat Bob, which is made to look like a Harley-Davidson furl tank, to the Blaster, which is very similar to a Fender Telecaster.
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