Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Many of you know that I currently have my 4002 in the hands of Dale Fortune. If you remember the back of the neck was sanded down to bare wood. Dale all but finished up with refinishing the headstock and neck. He sent pictures and wow, the neck looks so dam good I decided to go all the way.
The body had a lot of checking, and I still thought it was beautiful, hey it's a 4002!
Dale said it was the worse checking he has ever seen. So, that statement and his beautiful job on the neck and headstock convinced me to do the whole bass.
Anyway, I have pictures posted of the project so far, and I will continue to post as the project proceeds.
Keep up the good work Dale!
http://photobucket.com/albums/v324/lowendbob/4002%20Project/?

Hey Bob Lookin' good. That's my son, Jayme who's arm is in the picture. He did the strip and sanding. When we get the body stripped I'll send you more pix to post. Next Tuesday should be good. The wood in your 4002 is the most outstanding birdseye maple I've seen on a Rick.

(sigh)

Ohhhh, the flame.....

OK, dumb question time. I have often seen the term "birdseye maple", and can see that it's obviously got a different type of "flame" to the wood. But is there a story or reason behind the name? I'm looking at it thinking to myself, "Uhm, am I supposed to be seeing a bird's eye in this?" (he said, doing his best "Beavis and Butthead" impression...)

It looks fantastic.....

If you were to see a piece of wood with the "Birds Eye" pattern in it up close, then you would see why it's known as birds eye. These little tiny swirls in the wood look like the eye of a small bird. When a finish is applied to the finely sanded wood it brings out the beauty even more. As for Bob's 4002, the reason we decided to refinish the complete Bass: the neck was bare wood with a bee's wax finish, after preping it and putting the color coat on, it looked so good and the body finish(which was so badly checked,cracked,chipped,scratched,etc.)the decision was made to restore this Rare Bird to it's original glory. When completed it will look as good as it sounds.

Thanks Dale, appreciate the lesson. I've only even seen birdseye maple on a fretboard, and it is, indeed, beautiful. To see a whole guitar with that wood is extremely cool.

And your craftsmanship is amazing. Thanks for sharing with us on this and other threads. You are certainly teaching this old f@%+ a lot!

Beautiful wood on that 4002. I'm sure it will look spectacular when finished.

Well, looks like Dale is back hard at work again.
Dale and his son have the body stripped and sanded and now ready for sealer.
Lookin good Dale!
Thanks

more pics
http://photobucket.com/albums/v324/lowendbob/4002%20Project/

Getting close.

Nice balancing job on the heater..Hope it doesn't get too hot!

I'd love to see a 4002 reissue with the modern neck and truss rods and hb1 or hb2 pickups ...

....And five strings?

now that would be really cool ... but I can do the mod myself quite easily ...