Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hell yeah!...I'll buy it!

LOL....Pretty please.
...I'm all out of sugar...

As Ginger said Nope ..I'll never sell my babe...
and nor shall I.

In that case....BYOB..(build your own babe)hmmm...

Oh oh...

Perfectly doable if you have a beat 4001.......

...or a 4003.

Yeah, but wouldn't that just be entirely too much wood routed out of the body to relocate the pickups?
Since the stock treble pickup route on a 4001/4003 is so deep, sustain-wise would it even matter if more routing is done bridge-ward for another pickup closer to the bridge?

Dane: A 4001 would work better because of the shedua stripe and the same headstock (sans walnut) as a 4002. Also the 4002 has no body side access to the truss rods. To preserve serviceability, the new rods require that. It is not as big an issue with the old rods.

Jo: The neck slab could be remade from the bottom end of the fingerboard to the end button to solve that problem.

Doing something like this the right way would require that both original pickup routes be filled with maple blocks and then rerouted. My luthier did this on my custom doubleneck when I had him relocate the pickups to a 4002 position on the bass neck. I used a template that Ted gave me to get the pickups in the right location and for the modified guard. The sound with the pickups in that location is very good and not at all what you'd expect from a Ricky. A full scale 4002 style bass with humbuckers would be an awsome sounding bass. Hmmmm...

Good points Ted. I would approach something like this, not with the intention of duplicating a 4002, but building something obviously inspired by it in much the same way my 4008CS was done. I'm thinking 5 string with jarrah headstock wings and 21 fret dot board with white acrylic guard sans binding, vintage tuners and knobs, 5th knob, stereo jack only. I suppose I'd call it a 4002S/5CS. The routing at the end of the board would have to be carefully tunneled under with small slots for access for the proper tool for truss rod removal.

Yes, I agree. Attempting to duplicate the 4002 could confuse things later. I like the "inspired by" approach better.

Ted, what do you mean by the neck slab being "remade" from the fingerboard on down? Filled in with blocks and then re-rerouted to 4002 specs? I'm thinking those original 4001/4003 routs are not exactly square or smooth enough to be filled in with blocks without gaps, and if there's the slightest gap, wouldn't the sustain suffer?

They could be made that way. Making rounded blocks is no big deal really. If they were properly fitted into the routes there would be no adverse affect on the sustain. After that, plane the top down to the bottoms of the binding routes and apply a nice new top with the appropriate laminations (shedua et al). Cut a new binding route and bind.

What I meant earlier was to use some fancier wood working techniques and remake the neck slab from the neck pickup route back. This would mean removing the body wings angle cutting part of the neck slab off and splining a new piece in from the cut back to the end button. Make a new set of body wings in nicely figured maple and glue them on to the neck slab. Cut the appropriate pickup routes and be on your way. Of course there are many, many ways to do something like this none of which are terribly easy.

It's sounding like the sex-change on my 4001 to a 4002 may not be such a good idea since my Bass Insurance doesn't cover those procedures...only bridge and nut flossing, yearly.

Yes, that would be radical surgery. I did think of another a somewhat easier way to do it.