Mute / damper units, 4001/4003

[glking14]

No offense taken,I was trying to get as close to vintage parts for my guitar,from all the photos I've seen of the mute screws they looked more shiny so I shied away from them.I was concerned that the newer parts were not interchangeable .I'm getting an older damper in the mail and I'll post the measurements, the new ones look bigger by the photos I've seen

[henry5]

Good stuff guys. I'll be interested to see the results of your devilish experiment Jeff. "Its alive!...er, sorry, muted..."

Just hope the bass arrives ok. After the disappearance of flight 4001V63 all those years ago I get really antsy until the thing's in my hands.

[rickaddict]

Okay...Experiment completed! I didn't take any photos of it, so I guess you'll have to take my word.

My '71 slotted aluminum tail and a late 70's mute bar or a current mute bar go together easy peasy lemon squeezy! They even worked together better than with some of my newer zinc tails for some reason! The current mute bar is a bit wider, but still had no problem fitting as long as I removed the giant squishy foam mute pad. You'll want to do that anyway and either trim it down to original width or better yet...make your mute pad from a side of one of these: http://www.rickenbacker.com/cart.asp?vi ... cellaneous Which is the same width as the old mute pads.

Interestingly...The current foam mute pad http://www.rickenbacker.com/cart.asp?vi ... cellaneous is the same material and fits like a jigsaw puzzle into the void in the current pickup mounting pad! http://www.rickenbacker.com/cart.asp?vi ... cellaneous

Ingenious!



Although I wasn't able to mount the whole tail/mute bar assembly to a vintage bass, I would bet that the newer mute bar would fit into the same body route as the old mute bar.

[aceonbass]

I've been cutting the sides off of pickup foam to use as mute foam for some time now. I also like to chrome plate the mute bar, which is much easier to see when the skinny foam is in there. I also think that for intonation purposes, the skinny foam is best as the mute seems to change the pitch of the string slightly when engaged.

[henry5]

Cool suggestion re the foam guys, and good to hear about the mute bar etc.

[rictified]

I replaced the foam on several 70's basses a while ago (don't remember if I did my former 72 or not) and cut them in half lengthwise and put them as close to the edge of the bass as possible. The reason I did this was the the full width of the new pads damped the strings too much for me.

[weemac]

The newer mute bar will fit in the older tailpieces, but you may need to grind excess material off the bar to get it to fit into the pre 73 tailpiece and route...
My RM has a newer mute bar (well.. post 73 anyway) and I remember taking to the bar with a file sometime ago....

Eden.

[glking14]

I got my mid 70's damper bar today,it measures 3 1/2 inches long and 1/2 inch wide.I kept the two bolts for the ones missing off mine.I posted a couple of photos.

[rickaddict]

I've been cutting the sides off of pickup foam to use as mute foam for some time now.

Oh yeah. I forgot to give Dane credit for that one! It works really well. You can cut the stock foam mute pad in half, but it's hard to get the cut straight, and half the width is still wider than the original mute pads from the 60's and 70's. The sides of the pickup foam are already straight and are the same width as the pads from the 60's/70's.