My name is Brendan and I'm customer service over here at RIC. I don't really post on here but i do frequently read whats going on in the forums. Being a RIC fan myself it always is nice to look through whats being discussed and take in the wealth of knowledge that everyone here has. Its always nice to read up on what you guys are thinking of what is going on and take that into account to hopefully be a better service to all of you if you ever need my assistance also. If there is ever anything that any of you need help with please contact me at RIC and I'll do whatever i can to help. My sincere apologies to anyone who has had a negative experience with customer service and all i can say is that I'm here at RIC to genuinely help in any way that i can. Lets get to the point of this post though, about 2 years ago I had to sell my White 4001 (my prized possession) in order to buy a car so i could continue to get back and forth to work at Rickenbacker. Ever since then I've wanted to replace it with another RIC and it seems that im getting very close to getting my hands on what will surely be my holy grail hahaha. I asked John a couple months ago if there was anyway that we could build a 4002 with some minor alterations ( don't crucify me for the changes! hahaha, these are just things that i wanted differently since it was going to be a one of a kind instrument built to my specifications) and he was kind enough to give me the green light. Richard has been a huge help and i couldn't have done this without him and the talented work crew we have at the factory. I didn't start taking pictures until the fingerboard was already glued onto the neck so i do apologize for that. I started by ordering a nice piece of Gaboon Ebony for the fingerboard. Almost no brown markings and it almost appeared to be polished when i got it in the mail so i was very pleased. Me and Richard picked a neck from one of the 4001S models that we did for Guitar Center as a neck for the instrument. It felt slimmer than a 4003 neck and we have sanded it down much more than a normal neck to get it to my liking, I like 'em thin on the back of the neck and this thing feels great so far. I chose to go with the smaller vintage style fretwire and (some of you will hate me for this) i chose to add the triangular inlays instead of the dot inlays that the 4002's originally got. We put the black binding on the neck and put side markers in and once it was sanded down to my liking we were ready to look for body wings. Im sorry about some of the pictures being blurry but my phone camera isn't exactly the best
Ok so when it came to picking body wings me and Richard found some old 4002 wings and i picked the least figured of them because i want a solid color instrument and i didnt want to waste the beautifully figured wings on an instrument that you would never see them on. Once we got the two it was time to plane the edges and sand them down smooth so we could glue them to the neck. I was really excited at this point because it was starting to look like an instrument. It was really cool to see the difference in size between the 4002 horns and the modern 4003 instruments horns along with the overall size of the body. The fact that that body wings are older than i am too is something to wrap my mind around Next step was planning out the routes and i needed to contact pick guardian for a pickguard and me and Richard started talking pickups and electronics at this point too.
I ordered a 4002 pickguard from Tony over at Pickguardian and it was absolutely beautiful when i got it. I took that to work and me and richard started plotting out the placement of the tailpiece and pickups. Since we were using a neck that had the CNC positioning holes we realized we could just use the CNC to route out the tailpiece cavity. Once we figure out the placement of the pickups we were able to determine that the CNC control cavity route for a 4003 would work for this. We were able to program the CNC to just do these two routes and it came out perfectly. I was a nervous wreck from this point on but luckily everything came out perfectly. We were able to map everything out at this point and get an idea of what we needed to route out by hand and how to go about doing it.
So next we started to route out the pickup cavity (one because i plan on putting onboard distortion into this and it requires an area for a 9V battery to sit for its power supply) we used a plunge router to do this and luckily our best guy in the woodshop Sean was able to do it flawlessly. Once we had the pickup cavity and the lead into the control cavity we decided to address the problem of the truss rod access slots and the CNC locator hole. Both of these would not be covered by the pickguard so we decided we would just have to route out a rectangle right up to the neck that was the same depth as the truss rod access slots and then glue a maple rectangle into the space so it would look like nothing was there in the first place. Sean was able to do this flawlessly it honestly is hard to tell that there was ever anything there. The only problem now is that the truss rods cannot be fixed by simply sliding them out at the base of the neck. This is a risk Im willing to take though, especially after me and Richard checked to make sure that the truss rods were working fine and the neck does not appear to have any issues. Today the instrument went into 30 sand and should be getting the sealer coat tomorrow if all goes well. Ill take more pictures as it progresses and ill make it a point to come on here and post at the end of each day if my work schedule permits. Hope everyone enjoys the pictures and the updates, just glad that i could contribute something cool to the forum and all of you!
So is it "officially" a 4002? No XLR output I presume?
Unfortunately no XLR output but to be honest with you i dont think i would have wanted it if i had the option strictly because i dont think i would have ever used it. This is only going to have one jack because i dont ever even use the Ric O Sound option. Its getting a 4002 nameplate but to be honest with you i dont know what it will technically be hahaha.
Looking really good. Maybe this means a 4002 reissue some day...?! I want to believe it so much but I'm too afraid of the pain of waiting hopefully.
I would have just left the original rounded truss rod channels exposed. They really don't look that bad at all and would probably be enough for rod removal down the road if needed.
But faced with the choices you presented yourself with and not my "intermediate" suggestion, I would have done the same as you.
No hate! Love,love,love it! Your and my choices would differ,but it is absolutely cool getting to make your own custom Rick. Can't wait to see the finished product. (Oh,and those FWI's Really POP against the ebony!)
Awesome job man!! Very very nice. I love those 4002 instruments!! Obviously!! Thabnks for posting your project here!! So, is she getting 4002 pups or HB1's?? FYI, Mr. hall has a box of 4002 pups in the super secret part cage!!
Next step was planning out the routes and i needed to contact pick guardian for a pickguard and me and Richard started talking pickups and electronics at this point too.
but luckily everything came out perfectly. We were able to map everything out at this point and get an idea of what we needed to route out by hand and how to go about doing it.
