Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

It dawned on me that both my 1987 4003 Tuxedo and 4003 Redneck have two extra screws in their tailpieces. Here's a picture:



I actually thought that a previous owner of the Redneck had added these, but when I found them on the Tuxedo in the same relative locations, I thought that they must have come from the factory that way. To confirm this, I removed one from the Redneck and found that the hole has black paint along the inner edge of the hole; if someone had simply drilled it, there should be raw metal visible (which is not the case).

None of my other basses have these extra screws, and because both the Tux and Redneck were made in 1987, I figured it's just some RIC factory anomaly specific to these two models. I would be interested from hearing from the Forum community about this unusual feature.

It's quite simple, really. The bridge having the two extra screws was introduced with the 4003 Model bass, which was introduced in 1979/1980 (I think) as a 'beefier' 4001 adapted to cope with any type string made. I'm not sure when this 'new' bridge was discontinued, though. The bridge on recently-made Rick basses does not have the extra screws.

These extra tailpiece screws are factory original. If you take a look at the picture of the 4001v63 in the 4001v63 string volume thread above you will see the same screws on that bass as well.
I was the original ower of that particular bass. I bought it new in early 88.
I asked John Hall about the extra screws. His comment was that the tailpiece they were using at that time (1988) required additional support. Hense, the two extra mounting screws.
I recall (this was 7-8 yrs ago) that JH mentioned that the metal used in these tailpieces was made out of a softer compound, and was not as hard as it could be. The extra screws provided additional support.
I never had any problems with the tailpiece, it did its job perfectly. It just had 2 extra philips screws in it.
Cheers,
Jon

Jon and Sergio, thanks for the input. I did check the RIC parts diagrams and the bass tailpieces shown do not have these extra ones. Based on what you wrote, Jon, I would assume that the problems with the 'weak' metal were ironed out (ouch! bad pun) so that the extra screws were no longer needed. My 1990 Blackstar doesn't have them.