Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Awesome, Mark! Awesome!

BigJohnAZ wrote:Love the FG, even though the PumpkinGlo was starting to grow on me

Heh heh! Maybe I'll bring it back later on a different bass!

Thanks guys!

Having played around on the bass for a few days now, I'm noticing it's tonal characteristics. Compared to the '68 4001, the RM has more of a deeper gutteral sound whereas the '68 has more of a twang to it. Making a pickup-to-pickup comparison, the toaster on the '68 is warm and full, but also has a nice treble bite to it, but the '64 toaster is much mellower, almost as if the treble pot's been backed off a tad. This difference surprises me since both pickups read approx 7.5 and appear to produce the same volume. I have to wonder how much the wiring harnesses affect the pickups to result in this difference.

The horseshoe of the '68 has a nice warm attack, but is significantly mellower than the '64 HS which is significantly louder and brighter. This difference is less surprising since the HS mags on the '68 are more porous which results in a weaker magnetic pull than the denser magnets on the '64 HS. Plus, the bobbin designs are very different, too.

So with the two '68 pickups occupying similar frequency ranges and the '64 pickups being mellow vs brash, the two basses actually sound much more dissimilar than I expected. The RM sounds a lot like Squire's on 'The Yes Album'. I'll set up some mics tomorrow and do some audio/video testing.

walker wrote:The RM sounds a lot like Squire's on 'The Yes Album'. I'll set up some mics tomorrow and do some audio/video testing.

Well, I'll be awaiting this - now where did I put my popcorn.....

johnallg wrote:...now where did I put my popcorn.....

Check in Engineering.

Great Fireglo, Mark.

Here's an abbreviated pictorial history of the restoration:

I purchased the bass from fellow RRF'er Gerry Fergusson in 2006.







The only original hardware on it was the tuners and the jackplate. The pickups and harness were from late 1971, and the harness found a new home in Dave Pascoe's '72 Azureglo. It came in the OHSC which had an extra latch on it to replace the broken one. I found a replacement for it from a lapsteel case.







The body panel of the case was broken after the long journey from the Merry Old Land Of Oz, so I inserted a new plank of wood between the old wall of the case and the blue lining and glued & clamped it all together.





Under the hood, the bass had taken a bit of a beating from extra routing and a gazillion screw holes, and someone had sanded down the top/rear of the body, compromising the original shape:











Over the course of two years, I managed to track down the period correct hardware the bass needed - the toaster pickup, which I totally lucked out on for $80






...the tailpiece/bridge, the strap pins, the harness, a hand-cut Bakelite nut, and a pickguard & thumbrest from Tony Dudzik @ Pickguardian. Dane Wilder originally made one for me, but that had to be replaced since it no longer fit when the body was reconstructed. The horseshoe pickup is a 8-4 pole lapsteel conversion, and I cut the surround from the same lapsteel.







That brought the bass correct hardware-wise, but there was still the routing damage and the funky Pumpkin-glo color that needed tending too. Also, the headstock was pitched forward causing the strings to pop off when played, and the neck had a bit of an S-curve to it. Here's the angle of the RM headstock compared to the '68 4001, l-to-r.





At that point in 2008, I sent the bass to Chip Little for neck & fretwork which became a 5 year odyssey of misfortune that I believe I've already outlined. To his credit, he did correct the headstock tilt. The bass is strung with DR Nickel roundwound strings (100-80-65-45) and tuned standard.

Fast-forward to early 2013 when phase 2 began - replacing the top body wing and inserting a new neck block to address the damage there, and giving the bass a Fireglo refin.

The first step was stripping off the lovely Pumpkin-glo:




then removing the body wings:



















then cutting out enough of the neck to smooth over all the routing, and gluing in the new neck block:







cutting the new top body wings - option B was selected, gluing it and the original bottom wing to the neck:














removing the fretboard:





Boy, there's a face only Herman Munster's mother could love... sheesh. Nice!

Look at how crazy-thin the neck is without the fretboard - that's 7/8 of an inch.





Routing the new cavities, putting the fretboard back on, and putting the tailpiece on and stringing it up to see how the neck looks.

Prepping the headstock with vinyl putty before painting:









Getting the dirt & grey discoloration out of the wood on the back of the neck using oxalic acid. I learned this trick from Tim Ellis at TC Ellis Guitars.









~AND NOW~

PAINTING!

Reassembly:






I managed to get the strings lined up just about perfectly over the HS poles.



All four pots are dated the 25th week of 1964.






Complete:










And back to it's home:

Mark, That is just fantastic! Very well documented and an inspiration. Thank you for sharing this!

walker wrote:Reassembly:






I managed to get the strings lined up just about perfectly over the HS poles.



All four pots are dated the 25th week of 1964.






Complete:










And back to it's home:

How could anyone not be proud of this...super job, Mark, and a great story from beginning to end....

Nice job, Mark. I like how you did the shading under the guard and surround!

Mark,

Awesome job! I like how you chronicled the entire journey with all the fotos at the end! I can't wait to see & hear this bass in person!

Sepp

You have balls of steel, mark!