Anatomy Of A Rickenbacker Bass Part 4

[nbfanca]

I would like to thank everyone for their attention. Digging around a bit I found a detailed post from Paul, rcommending PPG2042. Now if I can only find a reseller in my area. (PAsadena, CA).

[nbfanca]

As promised, here are photos of the break that needs to be finished over.

Also I've included a shot of the back of the entire bass. Notice how dark the area around the break is. I am 99% sure this is a refinish, but I wonder if anyone has ever seen an original Fireglo that looks like this.

Bt now I am having second thoughts. My original idea was to atake it down to the wood and then airbrush it with finish and blend it into the surroundings. I did this with another break and the break can hardly be seen. But this is my first time working on a Ric. And after an email from Paul W, ot may not be possible to get a good match without using some CV and CV requires a lot of non-standard sprayin equipment. Plan B is to avoid taking it down to the wood and just overspray the area. But that would mean making it even darker.

Any Comments/Ideas?

[jps]

That was definitely badly refinished, probably to try and hide the cracks. if it were mine I would refinish the whole bass in a solid color.

[johnallg]

I don't know.... If I had the talent to spray, I would consider just sanding the darkened area, blend an FG as best I could, and overspray a clear coat. I would think a body shop could spray CV. The rest of the bass looks like a beautiful FG.

[nbfanca]

Yes, from the front the fireglo is gorgeous and in pretty good shape for the age. So I'm inclined just to try and make it look better. I worse comes to worse, I do nothing and it will only look terrible from the back.

I just did some sanding primarily to flatten the areas arond the cracks, but partially to feel out the overspray. The interesting part to me is that was is coming off appears to be cherry colored. So it looks like it was a colored overspray with no clearcoat. But if it was cherry as seems to be coming off, why did it ed up looking so dark?

[rickenbrother]

Did that 4001 come from the GC in Brea?

[rickaddict]

That one looks a whole lot like my '76 4001, pictured below. (PB 1275)

http://www.rickresource.com/register/us ... llsize.jpg

Probably the same guy sprayed them both.

Too bad about the break and the re-fin. That one was definitely refinished. The rest of the finish does look beautiful though. I don't know how much of a perfectionist you are, but for me I'd probably go for a full re-fin, possibly to a darker color like Burgundy. Maybe one of the masters could do a partial re-fin and get it looking right. And maybe you have spray booth talent that I haven't factored in.

Good luck, and welcome to the Forum.

[rickenbrother]

Ah, I just checked the one in that GC was Burgundy.

Yours looks similar to my '79, just a little darker than mine, but the difference could be the lighting or the camera.

[nbfanca]

Gorgeous, both. And it looks very close to that '76. I wonder if they were sprayed by the same guy. Mine was made in March.

This came off eBay from someone in San Francisco.

I often by damaged good like this to fix up. But this is my first attempt to fix a Ric. So thanks for all the help.

[johnallg]

Charlie, I forgot, welcome aboard!

[cjj]

Just bringing this back to the surface since it's about the finishes.

Ben Hall just mentioned over on the RIC site that production of the full UV cured finishes started week 16 of 2010. There were a few that required some touch up work so those have CV, but everything else from then on is UV cured...

[nbfanca]

Just in case anyone cares, here is how the whole thing turned out. I include before and after pictures. In the end I scraped and sanded off the darkened finish and then did my best to airbrush a replacement. It ain't perfect (no you can't look close) but it would take a close look to notice the fix - if you weren't looking for it - so I am happy.

It took so long partially because I did the refinish three ime, but mostly because it needed new truss rods and it took forever to get them.

Oh and it plays great.

Charlie Campbell

[FretlessOnly]

Charlie, it looks like you did a nice job with it, and you still get to retain the original finish on the rest of the bass, which looks great too.

[RicOSoundMan]

Thanks for the work and thought you put in this. I love it was and is very informative.

[johnallg]

Charlie, you did a really fine job on this. I am impressed. As John said, you retained the original finish and blended it in very well. I zoomed the full back picture and I do not see the fracture, and the blending looks original. Kudos sir!