I figure i would share my experience with the tailpiece...I recently remeoved the tailpiece on my 1975 4001..It has about .075" tail lift...
I purchased a new one from Ric...
Well the new one arrived and was slightly heavier..the new casting was slightly modified to allow more metal in some critical areas of stress.. Well, I put it on the bass on sure enough it killed the "magic" tone... The resonance was different...I now had a few dead spots I did not have before... Well I took my old original tailpiece to the machine shop at work...And very carefull lined up several blocks in a press.. I was able to press the bridge back in shape without cracking it..The metal actually had some "spring" to it... I put the original tailpiece on and now it fit flush, no lift..and the tone came back...my bass was back!!!
Gary, why did it need the last heat treatment? Do heat treatments help the metal settle in position?
"Virtually no gap is left at this point. I removed the clamps and gave the bridge a heat treatment of sorts: I heated the oven to 140-150 °F, turned the oven off, then put the bridge and plank in overnight.
After the heat treatment, the gap was about 1-2 mm: "
Jack, it probably didn't need it, rather I just wanted to give the metal one more chance to 'relax' at an elevated temperature. I'm a bit anal-retentive about things.
It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing. - Seneca
I had some experience with the early 4003 (split pick guard) tailpiece that has the additional 2 screws to avoid the lift. The sound and sustain was improved to my opinion. I don't know why Ric co. stopped to produce these tailpieces. They, necessarily were only available for some more time for the 5-string 4003 basses.
Coming back to the sound I personally experienced the difference is in the bridges, when I changed them on the same tailpiece. Does anybody have a clue whether Ric co. changed some material composition of the bridges from 4001 over early 4003 to current 4003? The old 4001 bridges definitely have more mid frequency resonance!!!
"The youth of today should start thinking about the state in which they want to leave this planet to Keith Richards..."! Quote by an unknown musician
Quote: "JH said the reason they dropped the extra screws is because people didn't like the look." Sadly, the optics ruled here! I primarily like the sound, and the early 4003 with the extra screwed tailpiece definitely sounded closer to the 4001 than the recent 4003 (until 2005) does. Maybe it is also the PUs and the missing cap (now reintroduced in 2006)???
"The youth of today should start thinking about the state in which they want to leave this planet to Keith Richards..."! Quote by an unknown musician
Here is another observation about the tailpiece I just stumbled into....
The new 4003 tailpieces seems to be made form the same material..it is a coppery color under the chrome... The 4003 is heavier because they modified the casting to have more mass on the sides in where it would bend...SO they strengthened it up near where it would bend...
On another note... I noticed on my 4001 bass and on 2 other 4001 basses..that the tailpieces does not "touch" the wood inside the routing on the front 3 screws...SO when they 3 screws are tighten downward, this cause addition downward pressure that "pre-loads" the tailpiece in favor of lifting... It is my opinion that this is a MAJOR cause of what initiates the tail-lifting..If you put some wood under the tailpiece inside the body routing,to reduce any clearance, you stand a good chance of avoiding any tail-lift..
Also when I straighten the 4001 tailpiece in the press...I had to bend "past" the straight point...becuase the metal had "spring" in it.. When I pressed it straight, it only sprang back and returned to the same position and did not go straight... I had to carefully and slowly go past the straight point so it sprang back straight...
That is an interesting observation about the tail piece not touching the wood in the route. Perhaps the screw pressure is causing the metal to deflect slightly about the lateral line of the screws setting up the lift? It never occurred to me. If that is true then tightening the screws could actually make the problem worse.
Ted..
Yes Exactly!!! I believe you are explaining it better than I did..
By tightening the innner 3 screws you are "pre-loading" the tailpiece with a downward force which is forcing upward pressure at the rear of the tailpiece.... This is aiding the tail-lift phenomena...
Keep in mind from a mechanical engineering perspective, tail-lift is something that gets exponentialy worse up till you are a 90 degrees of tailift.. WHen the bridge is flat and fluch the force are applied at the least angle...But as tail-lift gets inceasingly worse..so does the applied force get greater due to the reduction in the angle of the applied force...SO the problem is exasterbated...
