Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I'm finally here! Sushi was calling me. Nice entrance William.

I have been playing fretless for something like 27 years ( I've had/have Fender, Alembic, Yamaha and Zon fretless basses) and do love the 4002, which is something I need to help fill out my series, which so far includes a '73 4001, '04 4003FL, '03 4004Cii and a '67 4005WB. So you see I need a 4002 and an FL would be quite nice. I know I need a 4000 also, but I'll have to wait on that until I can afford one of the late' 50s models.

Stick around, don' be such a !!!

Hey William, since you were originally wanting a 4005, wanna trade?

BTW, I did notice the large string size there! My current Zon fretless is a five string, actually all three Zons I've had/have were/are five strings.

Lovely bass William. I wish Ric still did a 21 fret, ebony board bass.

My 73 FL is a lovely bass, but I'd love another like that.

Sorry Marc, some lucky soul will inherit it when I die.

As for my modification the only 5 strings I ever found and liked were the old Ibanez soundgear 800-900s. But I was a broke college student. I had already fitted my fender with a hipshot and thought it worked well I still couldn't get low enough.

At some point I read a Michael Manring article about the CGDG tunning and I play cello too so it was like "Of course! [Slaps own forehead]". I got some fret files and went to town. So now for the cost of a B-string I've got a 5-string range with only 4. I've been in that tuning for like 15 years...

The hipshot is still on my fender so it can get to that low A (it's a little flappy but if you octave it on the low G-string it's passable). It's fun to freak people out with the tunning too. Most other players don't expect something odd. Start playing their favorite tune or line and "oh! wait, something's horribly wrong"

Blaire,
What strings do you use on yours? Have you ever had the fingerboard resurfaced?

I had GHS bright flats on it (ground wound). I *think* I've got thomastiks on it right now. Can't remember...

So would this have the old style truss rods or the new?

I suppose this could be one of the NOS bodies that John Hall mentioned that simply had a jackplate added when the order came in.

I'm fairly certain that it is not a NOS. I purchased it used from rhoadsmusic.com in mid 2000. I believe the rods are old style. I've never needed to look. I can post pics tomorrow.

William, John Hall once posted and said it took many years after RIC stopped making the 4002 to sell them all. They were hanging round the factory so to speak.

It would be feasible therefore to think that you could have a body made around 80/81, possibly with the old type rods, yet with an 84 jackplate.

Maybe JH can give a little more info...

Hmm... I'll definitely post some pics tomorrow and see if we can sort it out. What year did they change the rod system?

I actually emailed JH back when I bought it to see if I could get info about the specific bass. He just pointed me to generic stuff and noted, as mentioned earlier, that they were "as rare as hen's teeth". I specifically asked him if he knew how many fretlesses existed. We now know that there are at least two I was a little bummed about the generic answer but really you can hardly blame him

BTW you guys can feel free to call me Bill

I think anything built after mid-september 1984 has the newer rods.

The new style rods require access at both ends of the truss channel. During installation, the rods are inserted at the body end with the anchor nuts in place then nutted of at the head. The 4002 has single ended truss channels. They are closed at the body end.

Then it's definitely old style. They must all be, Especially if JH said that they just slapped jacks on them as they were ordered. Mine's June of 1984

I once thought (incorrectly) that the serial numbers were applied at the time of order but JH said they were (and are still) assigned during the build. If I understood him correctly, your bass would have had it's serial number from the start.