Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Charley,

I did a search myself and didn't find it. It was probably on the other server. I'm not sure if Peter has access to those still. I've heard Ted is pretty busy these days but you might try shooting him and e-mail. I believe getting those wings off is fairly simple. I'd try a heat gun and and a putty knife first. That's what I use to remove fretboards. I haven't tried pulling apart a RIC yet but after seeing Ted do it, it looked pretty easy.

I think Ted might have had some type of heating blankets. If you are not careful with a heat gun, you can burn the wood.

Jeff,LOL

Charly, try to to email Dale Fortune,he worked at Ric back in the day, [email protected] he also is a member here and chimes in once in a while.

alternative heat source;

grasshopper

Charley, I've actually been thinking of doing this myself on my #1 4001. Years ago I started to (or attempted to) convert it to something like a 4004, although they weren't out at the time.

So I filled in the front control and pickup routings with maple blocks I cut to fit (I had routed a lot of wood out of the body, since the bass was my "mini Alembic" project at the time, with a lot of electronics installed), and a generous helping of wood filler to level it off, and then started covering the front with maple veneer.

While it was coming along fairly well, I stopped working on it for reasons I don't recall, and it has been languishing ever since.

Since joining this forum, I've been wanting to get my two 4001's back in working condition. My #2 bass will be much easier, but this one will require a lot more work.

So in trying to decide what to do with the body, I'm thinking along the same lines as you... I'm probably going to remove the body wings and make replacements in either figured maple or maybe walnut, which still leaves me with fixing up the body part of the neck-through. So now I'm thinking of removing the body wings, planing them down about an 1/8" (on the top) and gluing on a figured top, which also requires me to plain down the body/neck core. Alternately I might just leave the wings on and resurface the whole top, probably using a router and some kind of jig, and then gluing on a book-matched top. Whew!

Generally the glue used in wood working and lutherie, gets soft when you heat it up. The usual procedure for ungluing something is to use a heat source and then get a thin tool like a pallet knife and start working the parts apart. You can get heat blankets from Luthiers Mercantile, or try a heat gun.

Obviously in my case this is harder due to having filled in the top. But after I start to remove the veneer, it might not look so bad.

This is the victim.... ehh I mean patient.

The left side of the top has the veneer, and the right side doesn't.

That's cool David! I have a weird question. Has anyone thought of putting that extra vol/mix(4005) on a 4001 or 3? I had a blast at the Socalcon checking out all of the tones available with that little guy!

Charly, from looking at the schematic for the 5 knob system, the mix is simply an additional volume control for the neck pickup.

I know but it sure gives you more variation in tone! On my 87 4003, I don't really hear much difference when switching between pickups.

Try adjusting the bass pickup volume control, it will give you the same effect.

I was thinking of putting on of my new toasters in it just for grins. I still need a bridge pickup for the project but I have two toasters...