Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I have been asked this for years .I thought that I would give a generalized answer .

First , there is something called cosmetics that MUST be considered .
Second , the reversal of this MUSt also be considered.It can't be a deal where it is a permanent modification. Why? because as human beings , we are prone to changing our collective minds and as this is so true ....I just won't make it reversable.

So ........what does this take ?
The removal of the frets is easy , but you must fill the slots .A piece of wood with slots cut into one side with 200pounds of pressure pulling on the same side will cause the neck to curl.Even with two truss rods.

As most slots in bass necks are .024 to .028 a material that will look good and is 'workable' and is strong must be choosen.
I use plastics, brass, aluminum, and sometimes ...a contrasting veneer (if I can get a sheet in a suitable thickness- a hard thing to come by)
All of these materials are useable.And reversable.

Of all of them I prefer the metal .Aluminum is my favorite .I retains the fret look, holds up well and machines /sands easily.

On Rick basses , there is a finish to consider .I take a type from Jaco Pastorius fretless Fender Jazz bass.That is , cover the fretboard in a resin .I use a product that is used in the composite business .This resin is used in Snow boards , wake board, water ski's and aircraft components.I used it making Graphite necks in the late 1990's.The stuff is really hard .
After two coats of that , a good sanding the length of the fretboard and a polishing makes for a neck that holds up .

This is lots of work , but will work on vertually any era Rick bass. However ....on pre 1984 basses with vintage style rods , you may want to rethink this idea .
I would say to leave those as was ....with frets .

I'm sure that there are questions .....so fire away!

As a bit of background to Mark's post on this subject, I recently asked Mark in an e-mail what it would take to convert my Ric 4004 Cheyenne I bass into a fretless. My idea was to replace the frets with a walnut veneer that matches the walnut body wings, but Mark informs me that it will be very tough finding a veneer with the correct .026" thickness. Sanding it down would be dicey at best, and quite labor intensive to boot. The decision I must make now is what type of material to use in the fret slots that works well AND has a look I can live with. Walnut veneer aside, I'm now leaning towards brass or some other kind of metal that reasonably matches the gold hardware on the bass.

As Mark says, the job won't be cheap, and I've never been one to skimp & do anything half-*ssed. Converting the 4004 to a fretless will be done right, or not at all. The one thing I've noticed about this bass that I don't like is the maple fretboard. This is the only instrument I've ever had with one and I do not like the feel of it over rosewood or ebony. Aesthetically speaking, it looks great in contrast to the walnut body & headstock wings. But as I mentioned to Mark in my e-mail, the wood of the fretboard feels fragile-- like it could splinter and chip at any moment right under my fingers. Perhaps I'm not being fair considering that the fretboard doesn't appear to have any kind of applied hard finish like the resin Mark talks about.

Anyway, at this point I'm 95% certain to let Mark do the conversion if he is agreeable. (By the way Mark, my e-mail is down at the moment due to a transition in change of ownership and I have no idea how soon it will be back up. So I haven't been able to read your e-mail concerning your estimate of the cost of the project. I'll contact you by way of another working e-mail account.) If/when the conversion is complete, I'll report back here with the results.

Good luck with this major project, guys.

Mark commented: "However ....on pre 1984 basses with vintage style rods , you may want to rethink this idea. I would say to leave those as was .... with frets."

I have a '73 4001 FG that I had "defretted" in 1980. The guy who did the job used maple strips to fill the fret holes and some type of hard epoxy on top. It was a beautiful job that received compliments over the years from several luthiers - "looks factory" was the general idea. However, this particular bass has an excellent, stable neck and the rods have always been fine, so YMMV. The only "issue" was that because of the design of the bass, the bridge has a relatively limited amount of vertical play (downward) and you really need a perfect setup to get a good fretless sound. I'm not familiar with the bridge on a Cheyenne so maybe it is less of an issue.

To be honest I never really fell in love with the sound of this bass as a fretless and I played it less and less over the years. But this was my "baby" so last year I decided to have the thing refretted. That was a big job (much to my luthier's regret), partly because the maple strips did not want to come out of the fret slots, requiring slow and boring work with a Dremel bit. Unlike a bass without neck binding, you cannot just saw out the slots. Anyway, I am very happy to have it back in fighting trim - it sounds and plays great and gets a lot of playing time again.

Looking back on the whole thing, I wish I'd never gone fretless with this particular bass. IMHO, if you want to deal with defrets, refrets, etc., it is a lot easier in the long haul to mess around with a bolt-on instrument than with a neck-through, particularly one with a bound neck. Also, keep in mind that you do not know how this instrument will sound as a fretless until the job is done.

David-- You make some very good points I had not considered. However, I'm trusting this job to a highly experienced luthier/tech. If he sees anything that could cause the conversion to be "iffy", I won't follow through with it.

Since the bridge on the Cheyenne I is vastly different from the standard 4003 series, I think this will play heavily in my favor. Besides, for the final cost of the conversion, it will have to sound really bad for me to reverse it. That's why I want Mark to tell me in advance if he has any serious reservations about it being a successful conversion before he starts work on it.

It's highly unlikely I'll ever reverse the conversion to fretless. I've got better things to spend my money on besides a poorly thought out lark that I'll be tired of in 6 months. I know some instrument owners live for doing (and often undoing) mods more than playing their instuments. But that's not me. In fact, if Mark feels comfortable making this bass a fretless, it will be the ONLY instrument I have to be subjected to such a major modification. The only other mod I've had done to one of my instruments was to replace the original nut on my '66 Fender P-bass with one made of brass. Nothing wrong with changing something for genuine improvement; but making modifications out of boredom or idle experimentation isn't my thing.

As stated in my earlier post, I'll report back if/when this fretless project is completed.

After re-reading my previous post, I should apologize to David Howe if he misconstrued my tone in it. I never meant to imply any criticism for his decision to re-fret his bass; if it didn't sound good as a fretless, then certainly it would make sense to put frets back on the board. As David says, you don't really know how it's gonna sound until you do it.

But anyway, I do want to offer an apology if the tone in my post was misinterpreted.

THe refretting of a filled fretless slot bass has always been something to think about and I have an answer for how to 'undo' the filling.

THe material that is inlayed should be installed using a water soluable glue ...something that heat will help to soften.
I use wood veneer and glue it in with Hide glue .
THEN, it gets sanded to match the conture of the fretboard radius and then, covered in a resin .
That gets several coats and then the resin is leveled the length of the fretboard and re assembled .

To 'undo' this , heat (I use an iron for pressing clothing) is applied to the fretboard , this will pop the resin , then a damp cloth is layed over the fretboard and the iron is used again in combination with dental tools to 'pick' out the veneer. A saw is then run through the slots and the neck refretted.
Sounds simple doesn't it ? NOT!!!

Jeff - no apology needed - I did not take any of your negative comments personally, as they do not apply to me. I did the original defret for good reasons, used a good luthier for the job, and left it that way for over 20 years, during which the bass got a lot of good play, not to mention improving my technique. It was not so easy to find fretless electric basses in 1980 as it is today, at least not for me, and it was cheaper than buying another good bass.

As the years progressed, the whole fretless electric thing evolved so enormously in the wake of Jaco - I was able to play a wider variety of fretless electric basses and learned how to play the uprite bass as well. I eventually decided that I missed the distinctive sound of my Rick with frets, and preferred the sound of other electric fretless basses and the uprite to the Rick in its fretless incarnation. Purely a matter of the evolution of my personal tastes and preferences.

Mark: your comments about the gluing technique sound like what my luthier told me in 1980!! The maple strips were glued in with water-soluble glue to make it reversable. But ... as you say, it is not as simple as it sounds. In my case, 21 years later it just was not so easy to get the darn things out of the slots. Maybe the long passage of time was a factor. And, as mentioned in my original post, sawing out the fret slots is not possible in this situation unless you want to replace the fingerboard binding.

Anyway, Jeff, go for it - you are armed with all of the knowledge you need to make the right choice. Mark has an excellent reputation so if the job proceeds well I'm sure that the end product will be totally cool and that you will love it. (P.S. - get a bone nut on that P-bass!!)

~LOLOLOLOL~ Dave, you are absolutely right about putting a bone nut on the P-bass. At the time I did this, I was just getting back into playing the bass after a very lengthy lay-off. My trusty Fender was still the only bass I had at the time and my rationale for going with brass was longevity. I didn't know then that bone is a far superior material. My plan is to replace the brass nut with one made of bone within the next few months. A tip of the hat to you for the reminder.

My 4004 Cheyenne will be shipping out to Mark within 2 weeks. I'm anxious to get this project rolling.

Hmmm....here's a thought: What if you left the frets in, but filed them down to the tang?

A nightmare to ever remove them .

On the old fretboard material (something John Hall called 'HongKong rosewood) that stuff chips really easily when refretting .Digging out a piece of tang of the fret later .....I have done it on other fretboards and it is not fun.You end up gluing lots of little chips .As it is , Rick fretboards do NOT hide this very well .

I'd say from personal experience ....NO thank you.