Building a bass with mostly Rick parts

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 8:39 am

I'm toying with the idea of building a bass rather than refitting my Hohner with Rick Humbuckers. I found a place to get wood, and I'm toying with the idea of using Cherry instead of Maple. And if maple, should it be hard or soft.Whatcha think? and is an inch thick enough? They have 4/4, 5/4 and some 8/4 blanks that they call musical grade. I plan on doing a neckthru and I can obviously use most of their products for the wings.
And I will admit I know this is really not the place to be discussing this but I am gonna use Rick parts as much as I can.

http://www.westpennhardwoods.com/shop/cart.php?target=product&product_id=325&category_id=415

david_schwab · Post by **david_schwab** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 10:10 am

Cherry is a very nice wood for bodies. I built three basses with cherry bodies. It's a bit warmer than maple. Not too many people use it for instruments.

I think Rick uses hard maple, but you know, all maple is pretty damn hard!

A maple neck through with cherry body wings would look nice.

But a curly body would look nice also.

I'm actually going to rebuild an old Rick by removing the body from the neck and making new figured maple body wings. The body had a lot of stuff done to it, and this is about the only way to salvage the bass.

I might get ambitious and make the checkerboard purflings for it too.

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 10:46 am

heheheh ... put a ric tailpiece on the hohner ... heheheh ...

actually I was thinking of getting one of these and putting in 2 ric humbuckers and making it a 5 string bass ...

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 10:54 am

Jeff, I would do that except for two things. The Hohner is basswood or alder I believe. It is neck through but it has jazz pickups and the bridge pickup is not straight across. I may go buy the Rick with the broken headstock at Jammin Jersey's and make a Steinbacker or Rickberger! I'm just checking all my options....

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:16 am

here you go ... I should make one like this ...

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 1:18 pm

What are the copyright issues with looks? I assume I can't trace the body style or copy the headstock? On that one Jeff put up, I would worry about the balance!

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 5:23 pm

that is an Ibanez iceman bass ... it is well balanced ... notice the bridge location ... it has some extra body length that puts the center of gravity back far enough ...

it would make a good 5 string ... a new bridge, a new nut, and an extra tuner ... and some ric pickups for tone ...

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 5:24 pm

also you can trace of copy any bass ... as long as you are making one for yourself and not reselling copies ...

1rr3l3v4n7 · Post by **1rr3l3v4n7** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 9:12 pm

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 3:38 am

that is freakin awesome dude!!!!

david_schwab · Post by **david_schwab** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 6:11 am

My somewhat Rick inspired 8-string.

1rr3l3v4n7 · Post by **1rr3l3v4n7** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 6:46 am

I love the 900 combo tulip shape!

XD

wayang · Post by **wayang** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 6:49 am

That thing is....er....'sharp'...

david_schwab · Post by **david_schwab** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:04 am

Yes, it is sharp!

The body was once a Fender P bass... you can see it in the half of the body by the knobs.

Back in the 80's I decided to cut it into a different shape. it was once painted hot pink too!

Since then I made a new neck for it.. it's 32" scale. I also changed the way the neck is bolted to the body. The body is alder, but has a hard maple block inlaid into the top, with the neck pocket routed into that.

I hand wound the pickups as low impedance units, and it has active tone controls.

The MOP pickguard is the same plastic Ric used to use for the light show guitars!

soundmasterg · Post by **soundmasterg** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:25 am

I made this one using RIC parts. It was to replace my previous 1973 4001 which needed lots of repair. I made a couple mistakes with it, but overall it is good quality and sounds and plays great. I never plan to sell it, and if I did for some reason, I would make it clear that it is NOT a Rickenbacker, and would also take the nameplate off. I made the nameplate myself, and will not make any others. If I would have had the money, I would have just bought a new RIC 4003, but it was a good exercise to teach myself how to build a bass with a neck thru construction too.

It is possible to build something with RIC parts, as you can see, but it is more challenging and interesting to build your own design I think.