Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2003 3:44 pm
Randy, fortunately jetglo finishes are one of the easier to touch up if you wanted to.
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4003 finish flaw - what would you do?
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Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2003 5:17 pm
That's true. It's just a spec and after 16 years, I've gotten used to it.
Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2003 10:02 pm
Hey I gotta say that one the things I like about the newer Rick finishes is that they are pretty bulletproof! I have dinged my 4001v63 on all kinds of walls, lamps, Mic stands, cymbals, and garage door tracks, and I am constantly amazed by how tough the finish is. I've had smashups that I was sure would just leave a nasty scar just show up as a tiny scratch. They are much better than Fender in this regard, I don't have any Gibson basses so I can't comment on them. Maybe it was the whole Townsend thing that prompted Rick to make 'em so tough...
Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2003 12:20 pm
My kind of stupid luck, (or just general carelessness?) I bought a second hand 81 4001FL jetglo in 1990 with the cover still on, I brought it home and took off the cover, put the 4 screws for the mounting ring on the floor on the rug, guess where they ended up? Yup, right under the body of the bass, 4 nice gouges and the bass only had one little ding when I bought it.
I wish I had a buck for every time I've banged the headstock of one of my basses into a pipe or light or something like that. Randy, your story made me laugh because that's the sort of thing I do. I like mapleglos because they don't show the dings like the other colors, hell, you can even really bash them and chip the paint all the way down to the wood and it's hard to see. (I do not do these things on purpose BTW)
Yeah Doug and Owen, I like basses with charactor also, and if they don't have any when I buy them, they will soon enough! haha!
I have a couple I won't take out of the house because of my penchant for "giving" my basses "charactor"
I also agree with Gene, the finishes are great on these things, by far the best of any brand of basses I've owned.
When I was a 18 I bought a 71 P bass brand new, and sold it two years later, I looked in the paper for another bass a few months later and the guy who bought it from me was trying to sell it as a 64! I've gotten better since then thankfully.
I can still remember every major gouge I've put in my basses though, it does pain me greatly.
My Best story: I was talking on the phone with my girlfriend with this particular 71 P bass and was sitting at the top of the cellar stairs so my parents coudn't listen to me, and decided to let my girlfriend hear my bass over the phone (phones really are high fidelity for basses)without the amp. I put the phone against the body of the bass and starting trying to play it while holding the phone, and it slipped out of my hands and slid all the way down the cellar stairs onto a concrete floor. haha! Actually come to think of it, that was the worst one not the best one. Now wasn't that story worth reading this long boring post?
I'll save the story of the time my Dual Showman cab fell out of a pickup truck into the middle of the road face up ripping all the speakers screws out of the particle board going up a long hill for another time (and another forum).
Or the time I drove my 66 Pontiac station wagon over my friends SG and Guild Guitars, hey, it was his fault, he kept saying go, go, he waited too long to say stop!
I wish I had a buck for every time I've banged the headstock of one of my basses into a pipe or light or something like that. Randy, your story made me laugh because that's the sort of thing I do. I like mapleglos because they don't show the dings like the other colors, hell, you can even really bash them and chip the paint all the way down to the wood and it's hard to see. (I do not do these things on purpose BTW)
Yeah Doug and Owen, I like basses with charactor also, and if they don't have any when I buy them, they will soon enough! haha!
I have a couple I won't take out of the house because of my penchant for "giving" my basses "charactor"
I also agree with Gene, the finishes are great on these things, by far the best of any brand of basses I've owned.
When I was a 18 I bought a 71 P bass brand new, and sold it two years later, I looked in the paper for another bass a few months later and the guy who bought it from me was trying to sell it as a 64! I've gotten better since then thankfully.
I can still remember every major gouge I've put in my basses though, it does pain me greatly.
My Best story: I was talking on the phone with my girlfriend with this particular 71 P bass and was sitting at the top of the cellar stairs so my parents coudn't listen to me, and decided to let my girlfriend hear my bass over the phone (phones really are high fidelity for basses)without the amp. I put the phone against the body of the bass and starting trying to play it while holding the phone, and it slipped out of my hands and slid all the way down the cellar stairs onto a concrete floor. haha! Actually come to think of it, that was the worst one not the best one. Now wasn't that story worth reading this long boring post?
I'll save the story of the time my Dual Showman cab fell out of a pickup truck into the middle of the road face up ripping all the speakers screws out of the particle board going up a long hill for another time (and another forum).
Or the time I drove my 66 Pontiac station wagon over my friends SG and Guild Guitars, hey, it was his fault, he kept saying go, go, he waited too long to say stop!
Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2003 2:01 pm
I once lifted my 4003 into a revolving ceiling fan causing a nice pock-mark the width of a ceiling fan blade on the headstock.
Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2003 4:49 am
Geez you guys, don't scare me like that! I just loaned my 4001v63 jetglo beauty out to one of the guys on our worship team.... I hope it doesn't come back with any "character marks!" LOL!
Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2003 1:04 pm
My (now ex-) wife said it becomes a real guitar when it's been "baptised" by its first incident.
Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2003 1:52 pm
John that ceiling fan story is almost as good as my bass sliding down the celler stairs, did anyone see it? I would have fell over laughing.
Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2003 3:02 pm
Bob, I did the ceiling fan thing to my Jetglo 4004L. The ceiling fan blade came out second best. The ding on the headstock is almost unnoticeable. The newer RIC finishes really are tough like they say. Fender uses UV hardened polyurethane, so they can spray it, UV-ray it, and ship it out the same day I suppose. It is the hardest finish to repair, the RIC varnish finish will repair easier, but the Gibson nitrocellulose finish repairs the easiest (and unfortunately gets damaged the easiest).
Cisco, forget the minor flaw. If you look just right under the reflective light, you can see where one wing to neck joint is at on back of my 4004L bass right through the Jetglo finish. I consider it a very minor irregularity, which is NOT the same as a flaw. The knobs were at slightly different heights when I received it, but I just loosened them and used a business card to get them both at the same height.
You can't get the early 4004L basses with the maple fretboards and neck pickup flush up against the neck anymore, so it will become rare and desireable if RIC never goes back to that style. My early 4004L bass body also has solid maple wings, where some were flawed Cheyennes with walnut wings that were unsuitable for oil finishes that were therefore finished in Jetglo, if the stories I hear are true. A thick Jetglo finish and wood sealer can hide a multitude of wood flaws. How many people have a 4004 bass that has 100% maple wood like mine? Probably nobody else on the Forum, and darned few in the rest of the world! If maple wood = punchy sound, then I have the punchiest 4004 type ever produced by RIC. In the 650 series, the Jetglo finish costs $300 more at MSRP over the oiled walnut finish. RIC charges $250 LESS for the Jetglo finish in the 4004 bass series. Supposedly because they could use cosmetically flawed wood in the 4004L and hide it with Jetglo. Why not extend the same reasoning to the 650 series and charge LESS for the 650C Jetglo over the 650D oiled walnut finish? Because the Jetglo costs more to produce, and us 4004L bass owners got lucky I suppose. Or 4004 Cheyenne owners got ripped off, because they paid more for a cheaper finish. Maple and walnut cost about the same at near $20 per board foot for instrument grade, so don't lay the price difference on the wood.
Cisco, forget the minor flaw. If you look just right under the reflective light, you can see where one wing to neck joint is at on back of my 4004L bass right through the Jetglo finish. I consider it a very minor irregularity, which is NOT the same as a flaw. The knobs were at slightly different heights when I received it, but I just loosened them and used a business card to get them both at the same height.
You can't get the early 4004L basses with the maple fretboards and neck pickup flush up against the neck anymore, so it will become rare and desireable if RIC never goes back to that style. My early 4004L bass body also has solid maple wings, where some were flawed Cheyennes with walnut wings that were unsuitable for oil finishes that were therefore finished in Jetglo, if the stories I hear are true. A thick Jetglo finish and wood sealer can hide a multitude of wood flaws. How many people have a 4004 bass that has 100% maple wood like mine? Probably nobody else on the Forum, and darned few in the rest of the world! If maple wood = punchy sound, then I have the punchiest 4004 type ever produced by RIC. In the 650 series, the Jetglo finish costs $300 more at MSRP over the oiled walnut finish. RIC charges $250 LESS for the Jetglo finish in the 4004 bass series. Supposedly because they could use cosmetically flawed wood in the 4004L and hide it with Jetglo. Why not extend the same reasoning to the 650 series and charge LESS for the 650C Jetglo over the 650D oiled walnut finish? Because the Jetglo costs more to produce, and us 4004L bass owners got lucky I suppose. Or 4004 Cheyenne owners got ripped off, because they paid more for a cheaper finish. Maple and walnut cost about the same at near $20 per board foot for instrument grade, so don't lay the price difference on the wood.
Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 10:01 am
Thankfully nobody saw it happen but me.
The finish is still there although the wood is definitely dented. Compare this to the first ding on my F****r which noticably cracked the finish and left small but ugly fracture lines.
I'd probably freak if my bass slid down a flight of stairs!
The finish is still there although the wood is definitely dented. Compare this to the first ding on my F****r which noticably cracked the finish and left small but ugly fracture lines.
I'd probably freak if my bass slid down a flight of stairs!
Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 10:05 am
Mellisa, did you get your bass back yet?!
Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2003 8:40 am
Yeah, John,
I wasn't too thrilled as I saw it slide and heard it go bump, bump, bump, etc. and hit the cement floor, if it was a Ric I would have had a heart attack.
And I also think the finish on Rics is the best of any basses I have ever owned, when was the last time you saw a big worn patch on a Ric where the player rested his arm as you do on old F*****S? In ten years I put a 3" X 1" bare spot on the top of the body of my 68 P bass.
And speaking of ceiling fans I think I may have done that in the past also, I only remember the real bad ones though.
I had a mint 75 4001 FG and banged the lower cutaway into a piece of the drummers hardware, and this was after I had asked him to move a little bit so I could get back to my head for adjustments, he refused to move and a little later, bang! Was I p*ssed! It chipped right down to the bare wood, and that paint was thick too.
I wasn't too thrilled as I saw it slide and heard it go bump, bump, bump, etc. and hit the cement floor, if it was a Ric I would have had a heart attack.
And I also think the finish on Rics is the best of any basses I have ever owned, when was the last time you saw a big worn patch on a Ric where the player rested his arm as you do on old F*****S? In ten years I put a 3" X 1" bare spot on the top of the body of my 68 P bass.
And speaking of ceiling fans I think I may have done that in the past also, I only remember the real bad ones though.
I had a mint 75 4001 FG and banged the lower cutaway into a piece of the drummers hardware, and this was after I had asked him to move a little bit so I could get back to my head for adjustments, he refused to move and a little later, bang! Was I p*ssed! It chipped right down to the bare wood, and that paint was thick too.
Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2003 12:41 pm
Mortivan, thanks for asking.... Actually, I saw my baby again this morning, and Bill is taking excellent care of it. Actually the bass is kind of on loan to him indefinitely, as we used it at last Sunday's worship service for the first time and were just thrilled with the new dimension in sound (normally the guy plays keyboard, but he is an excellent bass player!).... I already play my Ric guitars on the team, so I figured I would lend the bass out to him so that it could actually be heard and enjoyed! I think he is really enjoying it, too. He told me today that the Ric is one of the nicest basses he's ever played (of course that was no surprise to me!).... Anyway, I think it's really cool that we now have two Rics on our worship team--we've never sounded better! My husband tried to take some pictures this morning, but they didn't turn out; maybe I will try to post some next week.
Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2003 7:25 pm
A cieling fan, yikes, very scary. Bob, I'm surprised you didn't do a "Dan August" imitation and dive after the bass.
Back in '87 or '88, we played a 'battle of the bands' gig at one of the local pubs. One of the bands that played after us was a younger thrasher band. At the end of their last song, the lead guitarist threw his axe (one of those pointy Japanese models) into the air and was standing under it with a look of confidence that he would surely catch it. Just as the guitar came close to him he jumped back like it was some kind of bumble bee diving for him and the guitar hit the stage head first. He picked up the guitar and the headstock was dangling by the strings. I felt for him, but at the same time was wondering what the heck he was thinking. "Anybody bring the glue with them ?"
Back in '87 or '88, we played a 'battle of the bands' gig at one of the local pubs. One of the bands that played after us was a younger thrasher band. At the end of their last song, the lead guitarist threw his axe (one of those pointy Japanese models) into the air and was standing under it with a look of confidence that he would surely catch it. Just as the guitar came close to him he jumped back like it was some kind of bumble bee diving for him and the guitar hit the stage head first. He picked up the guitar and the headstock was dangling by the strings. I felt for him, but at the same time was wondering what the heck he was thinking. "Anybody bring the glue with them ?"