Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hi all,

I'm making some acoustic guitars, and have almost no experience with basses...

A friend of mine brought me his 4001, that has suffered from climate changes and travelling too much... It was in poor condition!
His 4001 had a cracked fingerboard. It broke at the end of the lead square inlaid at the back of the fingerboard, just under the 4th fret slot. I removed the fingerboard, levelled the lead weight (it was 1.5 mm too thick!) and reglued the fingerboard, I straightenned the truss rods ends, re threaded them and
put them back. I levelled the frets and tuned action and relief. Now the bass is playing fine, but... I couldnt adress one problem: the neck is curved laterally: I pushed the nut towards the bass side so the G string is playable,
but in the middle of the neck it comes too close to the frets edges to be comfortably played.

The fb is very dry, and I doubt it would stand any lateral deformation.
I was thinking maybe removing the fb, then try and slowly set the neck backin shape, and putting a new fb could do the trick.

Any suggestion for straightening it, appart from making another neck?
Thanks in advance!

Yikes! Now that is interesting!! Could this be what may have caused the fretboard to fracture?? How does the fretboard fit to the neck? Does every thign line up like it should?? The truss rods will help with combat string tension but lateral thrust, they will not. The hair pin truss rods need the fret board to push against to set the neck. I wonder if the instrument left the factory like that or was it a moisture issue. I've seen some pretty wonky instruments leave the factory over the years, ones that should have been stopped at QC and send back for a little more TLC.

Before making a new neck with conventional truss rods you can try a steam press. What the heck, right?? What's it going to hurt?? It may even help although I think you'll be making a new neck and doing a bit of finish work on this.

Sepp