Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Looks great, Paul, er, Brian!

jps wrote:Looks great, Paul, er, Brian!

No, you were right the first time. It does look great, Paul

I saw Brian's bass in process last week. I'm sure he's thrilled as I would be as the painting really is top drawer. Kudos to the 'mudge'.

Well done Paul and congrats Brian. That's a great looking bass I am sure it was well worth the wait.

simer4001 wrote:

jps wrote:Looks great, Paul, er, Brian!

No, you were right the first time. It does look great, Paul

I was thinking of a different Paulie!

jps wrote:

simer4001 wrote:

jps wrote:Looks great, Paul, er, Brian!

No, you were right the first time. It does look great, Paul

I was thinking of a different Paulie!

Right over my head! Thanks for the clarification.

Was this a second 4001C64 FG you had, Brian. Or was it that gorgeous one I commented on Facebook?

JakeK wrote:Was this a second 4001C64 FG you had, Brian. Or was it that gorgeous one I commented on Facebook?

This was a second one that I purchased used from fellow forumite Chris Pappas. Paul thought this was a good bass to do the conversion with because he felt the finish on the bass was more clownglo than fireglo. The bass you saw on facebook and commented on is still in it's original condition.

Wow, fantastic MMT. Paul has done brilliantly on this. I'd love to see more pics, including closeups. Post some more if you can.

Again, wonderful bass. Congrats, Brian, & great job, Paul.

apollo11 wrote:Wow, fantastic MMT. Paul has done brilliantly on this. I'd love to see more pics, including closeups. Post some more if you can.

Again, wonderful bass. Congrats, Brian, & great job, Paul.

The only photo's I have are the ones that Paul took. I will post some of the others he sent and then snap a few tomorrow in the daylight. I'm not sure if Paul documented the project with any other photo's. We didn't really talk about describing the step by step process here or anywhere else.

Although I personally don't care for PMC's handiwork, Paul W. did an amazing job replicating it. That couldn't have been easy to do.

I really doubt Rickenbacker would ever apply that to a production model - think cost/benefit analysis...how many people would want the paint job versus how long it would take to get it right.

Here are some more bandwidth-piggy shots. The bass was quite clownglo-ish (a new adjective), and the first thing I did was to re-spray body, neck, and headstock with a gentler and more ambered pattern. Brian and I discussed via email that he wanted AFG, so AFG it was.

The masks were all hand-cut and the paint tints and shades custom-mixed. By all indications and deductive reasoning, McCartney slathered on some red paint and then rested the guitar in two different orientations, in order to get those weird elbow drips, there was no way to replicate this exactly a second time, so I opted for an accurate graphic representation and interpretation, using my usual urethane mixing bank and an assortment of spray guns and settings. There's pure white in there, a special gray tint, a special AFG red tint, another opaque red "cheater" shade for the drips, and some pearl white, which is tough to see in photos...

A fair amount of supposition had to be made in areas not documented by photos. There are exactly zero really good color photos of this instrument, and screen caps, etc., do not show much detail. You'll notice some liberties taken along with one area (the neck heel on the treble side) that changed between these photos and the final paintwork--it went from white to deep red FG, for appearance's sake.

Note that in these photos (I have no step-by-step; photos were taken at the end of each part of the process only), the varnish has not been flatted, so it exhibits a fair amount of typical pre-flatting orange peel.

jingle_jangle wrote:Here are some more bandwidth-piggy shots. The bass was quite clownglo-ish (a new adjective), and the first thing I did was to re-spray body, neck, and headstock with a gentler and more ambered pattern. Brian and I discussed via email that he wanted AFG, so AFG it was.

This isn't 100% accurate. Paul had to talk me into the Amber fireglo. And I sure am glad he did. McCartney had painted the back of the body white, but the neck and headstock remained fireglo. I didn't want that look. I had asked Paul if he could do some sort of psychedelic design on the back. Paul sent some designs, but then I decided I wanted something simple. I had asked him about keeping the white colored theme on the back. I had asked him about doing a "white-glo". A white translucent color in the middle that fans out to a solid white along the edges. I would continue with that color scheme on the neck and headstock.

After several emails and a few conversations Paul thought the amber fireglo would be more consistent with the overall look of the bass. He could not have been more correct. It is the perfect color to accent the design on the front. Not to mention the amber fireglo is stunning and adds depth to the overall look. Especially when you see it up against the white that is on the front. The finished product is absolutely brilliant.

We also discussed cracking the pickguard and having some overspray on the pickguard, like McCartney's, but decided the cleaner look was the way to go. We also decided to leave the front of the headstock as is. Paul had a couple of silver marks on his, but I decided against this too.

As always, Paul put an incredible amount of work into the preparation and execution of this project. And for that I am grateful. But mostly I am pleased out how it turned out.

Fantastic pictures. Many thanks for posting them. Fantastic work, Paul & Brian. Great read!

Wow! The bass as a work of art. Most impressive.

JimK