Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Is there a way to correct the neck angle on an old (pre-86) 4001? when the neck itself is straight, almost no relief, and the bridge is all the way down. If it were a bolt-on I'd add a shim, but what do you do with a neck-thru?

My first Rick bass, a '68/69 4000 (purchased new), was like that from the factory. I have seen others that way. What I did was sand down the bottom of the bridge so that it would drop lower into the tail piece.

I had a '79 that I had to raise the bridge almost all the way up just to keep the strings from buzzing out ... and I have done the sand the bottom of the bridge thing also ... or you can cut the grooves in the saddles deeper also ...

Good ideas, thanks! How much can I sand off the bottom of the bridge? Where do I stop?

I would say a few mm ... be conservative ... also look at the other end of the bass ... the nut ... depress your strings at the 2nd and 3rd frets ... this should take very little pressure ... if you push the string a lot then maybe the nut grooves aren't deep enough ... this will improve action up and down the neck ... I usually set my nut grooves to where the open string almost buzzes ...