1965 4001 needs a bit of TLC

[Kopfjaeger]

UPDATE (minor)

The toaster is installed with new grommet bushings from PotR. The pickguard screws were a mix mash of all sorts of sizes. I filled all the over size holes with a slurry of wood glue and maple saw dust made from my table saw, Re-drilled with the correct size bit, now the new PotR screws are all snug!!

Dane Wilder gave me the great idea about extending the ground/shielding on the toaster pup. If it was important enough for me to have the harness correctly brought back to spec and since Dane went through the bother of using all the original pot casings, then it was important to solder the ground to the correct location. Dane said to just get some 20 gauge wire and weave it into the shielding. Tin it all together and PRESTO. now it reaches!

Sepp

Toaster soldered in. CHECK!

Pickguard screws all doing their job without risk of falling out. CHECK!

[Kopfjaeger]

UPDATE

A little premature but this is incoming! Fresh from the workshop of Mark Walker!!

Looks awesome!! Can't wait to hear it!!

I have filled in the really deep saddle grooves with epoxy. I'm surprised the E saddle did not split in two due to the depth of the groove!

Sepp

[leftybass]

REALLY looking good...!!

[Ashgray]

UPDATE

A little premature but this is incoming! Fresh from the workshop of Mark Walker!!

27.jpg

Looks awesome!! Can't wait to hear it!!

Sepp

On the basis of the sonic transformation I heard when I installed mine into my V63, you're in for a real treat!

Let us know how it sounds!

Ash

[teeder]

I'm glad you decided no to refinish it! Love that Mojoglo!

[jps]

That pickup should be pretty awesome in your bass, Sepp!

[walker]

Yeah - I can't wait for you to get it, too! And I'm looking forward to hearing how the epoxy fix works for those saddles.

[Kopfjaeger]

A ton of work done since I last posted on this thread. The aluminum epoxy I purchased was 6 years past it's expiration and was nearly un-usable. I got my money back and used JB Weld to fill in the huge deep crevasses in the saddles. It turned out quite well actually!! I purchased a nice set of bass nut files to cut fresh grooves. That made cutting new slots a breeze!!

My horsie arrived from Mark the beginning of the week but I did not have any single conductor shielded circuit wire. I ordered 25" from Stew mac and opted for standard delivery since my nut files only took 3 days to arrive. I placed the wire order on Tuesday and watched the package sit in the post office for nearly 3 days! Now the updated arrival date is Monday Aug 12. Unacceptable!! Not to be defeated that easily, I called a few local guitar repair shops and I talked a local builder out of a foot of the proper wire!! Yeah, I know it's black but I could not wait any longer!!

I completed the soldering and put closed up the pickguard for good!!

I decided on Circle K strings .098-.073-.055-.039.

Here is the finished product!!

Sepp

[Kopfjaeger]

More fotos.

Before

After

Before

After

Sepp

[JakeK]

All right, Sepp, you brought that bass back to life! Well done!

Here's the big question: How does it sound?
Another big one: How does it play?

I, like many others, am pleased that you decided to keep the finish the way it is. It looks awesome!!

[Kopfjaeger]

jake,

I had a horse shoe equipped bass befpre. it was Paul Boyer's "Snow White". It had 1967 shoes with a Sergio Silva wound bobbin and a re-issue toaster. While I loved the sound I really never bonded with the bass. After I sold her, i missed that "sound" in my arsenal.

I am happy to report that this bass is a monster!! The tone out of the pups is pure Rickenbacker!! The toaster is out of a 1966 12 String and Ohmed out at 8.04. The Horsie that Mark rewound out of a mid 60's 6 pole raised lip bobbin Ohmed out at 8.4. The new strings are a bit bright sounding and that normally does not bother me but I find myself just slightly backing off the neck pup to give the tone a bit more bass. More than i normally do.

Playability? Very nice!! I lucked out with the saddle position since the A-D-G were nearly intonated spot on! The E seems a bit sharp and I'm all the way back as far as I can go.

Now for the issues. I barely have any tension on the truss rods and I have a slight amount of back bow. Here I was thinking I'd put light strings on her to give the neck a bit of a break but she seems to want more tension pulling on her. While I worked on her, I had backed off the trussrods and the neck had a nice gentle back bow curve. I'm hoping in a day or so she'll react to the string tension and get some relief. At the 8 & 9 fret on the E & A string I get fret buzz that goes away on the 10th. On the G string I get fret buzz on the 14 fret that goes away on the 15th.

Here is the weird thing. The Tail piece seems to be slightly askew. The bass side seems further from the headstock than the treble side. The strings get to the saddle then make a slight turn and travel up the neck. I did not notice this before taking her apart. She must have been this way since I used the same holes to mount the tail piece.

Odd.

Sepp

[Kopfjaeger]

Nope, I just compared the before and after fotos and it seems the tail piece is lower on the bass side after I put her back together. How the heck did that happen??? I'll loosen the strings, pull out the bridge and jostle the bridge around a bit. I should be able to get her to sit like she was before since I did not change a thing about the tailpiece!!


Sepp

[walker]

Dang, Joe! Lookin' good! Yeah, man - I'm looking fwd to your test drive report, too! The epoxy fix looks great! You can hardly notice the difference in color tone.

About the backbow - Id' say let it sit with those strings for about a week before you get around to adjusting the truss rods or the bridge. It'll take awhile for the neck to settle now that string tension has been applied to it. If it still has the funky backbow issue in a week, then try using a thicker gauge string if that's acceptable to your playing style. If that's not an option for you, or if it is but it still doesn't solve the problem for you, let me know and I'll give it a steam press treatment if you want me to.

About the odd placement of the tailpiece - not so odd, really. A lot of stock '60s basses that I've seen have this same issue. I had to take great care in the placement of the tailpiece screw holes when drilling for my RM. There's a small amount of "fudgeability" in the angle of the tailpiece if you loosen the three screws and shift the tailpiece in the direction that you want it to go. You can also "move" the three screw holes in the tailpiece itself by slightly redrilling the holes and pushing aside in the direction that compensates the angle and then refill the extra gap in the hole with the wonderful fix-all epoxy.

[Kopfjaeger]

Mark,

She sounds "killer"!! really growls in every sense of the word!! I really need to blend in the neck pup a bit more than any of my other RIC basses. I normally roll the neck pup back a quarter on tone and volume. With this bass, I have the neck volume rolled back an eighth and the tome full with the treble tone backed off an eighth!!

I'd rather not up the gauge of the strings, although these are the lightest once I have on any bass. If I need to move up, I'll do it but I'll wait a week to see if I have any movement. Never thought I'd be wishing for a bit of excess relief!!

The tail piece will go back to the correct location since I made no modification to it. I'll line it up on the wear marks to make sure.

Sepp

[johnallg]

That J-B Weld worked really good. SOMEBODY really filed those slots deep in the past!

Kudos for the rescue.