Best man in UK for neck/truss ?

bob_atherton · Post by **bob_atherton** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 11:40 pm

Hi,

I need some very professional attention to the neck/truss of my beautiful, beautiful 72 4001.

Worst case scenario I think we could be looking at a new truss system or at best quite a serious mod to the existing one. This bass is just so special that I want the best guy I can find to do the job.

Any pointers to the best man in the UK for this kind of work?

All the best, Bob

bob_the_bass · Post by **bob_the_bass** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 4:24 am

Bob ....
I get all my gear from a shop called Sounds Great in Cheadle, Cheshire. The guitar tech there is very good & has experience on Rics. Suggest you give them a call - failing them Ric's-R-Us has a good reputation

Bob

leftyguitars · Post by **leftyguitars** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 7:25 am

Bob, The guitarist in our band is a professional guitar maker, he has made guitars and basses for top names. I always get any of mine checked out by him and I trust him 100%

http://www.nigelsguitarworkshop.co.uk/

Tell him I sent you as he often turns work away as he is so good that they queue up for him!.

henry5 · Post by **henry5** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 6:05 am

Bob, my 72 needs the truss rods doing too, and I know that John Diggins of Jaydee guitars has done this repair before. He makes all the hardware (including trussrods) for his Jaydee basses and guitars, so may be a good call. His basses apparently now use double trussrods too so he should have a fair take on the Rick thing. I'm probably taking my 72 to him in the next week or so, with fingers thoroughly crossed as it's my pride and joy. Martin Petersen at the Bass Gallery in Camden Town is a fantastic luthier, you could maybe give him a call. He normally does all the work on my basses. Chris May at Overwater is also excellent, although he hates double trussrods! RicsRUs could be a good idea though. Maybe you should wait and see how I get on (although I really don't fancy being a test case for this !)

wints · Post by **wints** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 6:48 am

Good luck guys. I couldn't find anyone in the 80's and early 90's.

bob_atherton · Post by **bob_atherton** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 11:36 pm

Hi Shaun,

As I want to get this absolutely right, what’s a couple of weeks…. I will watch this space eagerly, good luck.

I bought an Overwater from Chris May about 12 years ago & he has tweaked it since, he does indeed know his stuff.

Bob

ilan · Post by **ilan** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 4:47 am

Bob... did you get my email?

bob_atherton · Post by **bob_atherton** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 8:49 am

Ilan, thanks I did, you have mail.

henry5 · Post by **henry5** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 12:05 am

Well, my 72 is in for the job; watch this space. If it goes wrong you won't hear from me for a while cause I'll be too busy crying.....although John knows his stuff so I'm fairly confident. Fingers crossed....

bob_atherton · Post by **bob_atherton** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 4:18 am

Hi Shaun, thanks for keeping us informed.

I have just spent 3 hrs with my bass tech ‘taking a look’ at my ’72.

The problems were potentially quite serious. The 2 nuts at the top of the truss rod were at a perilously steep angle and it was impossible to get a screwdriver under them to lift them to apply a ¼” socket. I tried to do this and caused a very small split at the back of the neck…..doh…. This was mainly due to the previous owner chiselling away park of the cavity under the nuts to accommodate their position.

Anyway my chap assesed the battlefield and fearlessly went in where others have feared to tread.

He removed the nut, got out a Dremmil (sp?) and cut away about 5mm of the top section of the rods. This released some of the tension in the rods and we stripped them out by tapping a steel rod up the neck from the body end. They were in fairly poor shape but he restored them quite easily.

This is where I left him a couple of days ago. He is going to make a new thicker aluminium block and redress the rods so they should be close to their original former glory.

I should have gone to him before but I guess I just wanted to find the expert in the UK. FWIW a few of the ‘experts’ in the UK knew Jack S about the old truss system. Eltham, my tech, has said that he would be interested in doing similar repair work to other vintage Rics. He can be seriously trusted with valuable instruments and FWIW is the guitar tech for Van Morrison. He is also considering making up ‘new’ truss rods for vintage Rics…….

I will keep you posted.

henry5 · Post by **henry5** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 8:24 am

Bob, sounds good. Let us know how it goes. Of course it would have been nice to find this out a few days ago...only joking!!!! Seriously, I hope it works out well, and that replacement rod idea sounds great. I'll let you know how my bass is in a week or so....*sweating profusely*

...I did consider having a go myself but my rods were in the same condition as yours from the sound of it and I have very few tools necessary for the job, so took the easy way out. At least I hope it was the easy way!

henry5 · Post by **henry5** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 3:22 am

Well, she's back. My rods were in pretty dire shape, so John has crafted new rods of his own design to take their place. The up sides are that the neck has now lost the sponginess that it had, the tension is consistent (before if felt bowed in some places, back-bowed in others, and felt really sloppy tension-wise), the instrument resonates much better (the E is twice the size it was), and the rods are fully adjustable, with John stating quite categorically that moving up to heavier strings would present no problems whatsoever. The nuts have been replaced by allen key adjustable sockets and the construction of the rods means no more bending into the headstock (or anywhere else unless by design). Feels like a new bass! The only downside is that the design of the rods means that they are fixed and not removable, although after saying that there should be no reason to remove them probably in my lifetime anyway.

One minor disappointment is that as the bridge is at the limit of its downward travel the action remains marginally higher than I would have liked at 3/32s at the 12th (E). Still, it's been that way for ages, so I guess I'll just have to learn to live with it. Somehow I think countersinking the bridge would be a bit extreme....

bob_atherton · Post by **bob_atherton** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 4:11 am

Shaun, sounds like pretty good news to me. Shame the rods were so shot that they had to be changed.

My bass neck was in not such a bad way as your one by the sound of it. Mine has come back working just fine, BUT, I will never be able to use my beloved 45 - 65 - 85 -105 strings.

The bass sounds and plays great with the light gauge on at the moment, but I played a gig with it a couple of days ago & I couldn't really attack the bass in the way I can with my later 4001's.

Hmmmmmmm there might yet be a very pretty '72 on ebay one day. Kind of sad, but I will never keep a bass if I cann't gig it from time to time.

Enjoy yours till the cows come home, all the best, Bob

henry5 · Post by **henry5** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 2:06 pm

Bob, I hope you manage to get it to work out for you, it'd be a shame if you had to get rid just due to being unhappy with the string gauge. Stick with it, you never know, it might work out. Ironically it may have been better for me if I'd gone the same route as you as I'm unlikely to go beyond my 40-95s, whereas from what John says your 45-105 would be no problem for my new rods...maybe I'll try it at some time, just to see. All the best anyway, and I really do hope it works out for you.

bob_atherton · Post by **bob_atherton** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 11:34 pm

Shaun, I think the idea of parting with the '72 must have been a rush of blood to my head. Just got the old girl out and, oh boy, she looks and plays very well. I don't think I could part with her.

I hope to get the odd very mellow, laid back jazz gig in the future. The '72 will work a treat then. In the future maybe someone will produce some replacment rods for the old system.

Eltham, my bass tech is toying with the idea of making up replacement rods in stainless steel. He thinks that SS rods made to the same spec as the original rods will work. At least they will not rust and should have a bit more 'life' in them. Sounds quite scary to me...!