Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

What is the masking tape for anyway?? Forgive my ignorance.

My '75 (I know it is the wrong way round!).

The pickups are loud on this one.

"What is the masking tape for anyway??"

I think the pots would slip easier without, in other words: You don't have to tighten the pot nuts so hard, thus reducing the risk of cracking the pick guard.


(hope I did my english understandable)

Your English is fine Lars.

Lars,
Absolutely right, the masking tape provides a little traction and protection between the top of the pot and the pickgaurd this helps the pot grab without running the risk of scratching the plastic.

Thanks for the info. My 4003 doesn't have the tape. Go figure....

My October 1975 4001 has the black plexi truss rod cover and I have every reason to believe it is original. Latest example of this TRC on any bass I have seen. Mine is the black TRC< on a white bass.

Joey, after looking a little more closely, I believe you may be right. The hole cut for the pickup is pretty shoddy, and nobody seems to have any input about the pickguard material. So I'm thinking that someone cut whatever they had lying around into a pickguard. Other than the pickup hole it looks pretty good. I'm going to take it off in the next few days. I'll take some pictures and put them up here. I'm also going to bypass the cap and see how that sounds. What fun!

I think you'll like the bypassed sound. Also, you might want to shim the underside of the bridge with washers, it will help out the E string response and also help mitigate the dreaded bridge lift. At this thread:

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I did the bypass, and it sounds good through the cheap solid-state guitar amp that I have at home. We'll see how it REALLY sounds when I try it out through my Mesa 400+.

As for the pickguard, I think it might be fiberglass! Super weird. Check out the pictures below (not sure about how to post them, but the links are there if nothing else). If anyone knows fiberglass well, let me know if that's what this is. It's really brittle and has a strange texture on the underside. It looks like it may have been spraypainted black on top, but it's hard to tell . . .

[img]http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-8/1206611/121-2195_IMGsmall.jpg[/img]

[img]http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-8/1206611/121-2186_IMGsmall.jpg[/img]

[img]http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-8/1206611/121-2190_IMGsmall.jpg[/img]

That is not an original pick guard, Ethan.

Yeah, that's what I figure too, it's very odd . . .

'75 was the last year for the plexi TRC. Depending on the color of your TRC, I'm thinking the original pickguard color for your bass should be white. Also, if it was made before May of '75, it should have 1/2" pickup spacing.