Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Sorry for the flurry of new posts, but among the things I want to do is replace my foam mute, it's got big time shrinkage. Are these hard to find and replace?

Rickenbacker has them, very cheap. They're different than the old ones, wider, I've cut them in half.

RIC sells the pads for $3. I just took the tailpiece apart from my '77 4001 last night to replace it with a Hipshot, & it looks like the original pad was held in place with tar!
What a mess!
Time to get out the brake cleaner, I suppose.

Ah cool, I shoulda thunk it through first. I'll be needing some other small parts from them, so I guess I'll do it all at once. I yanked my mute and it was just resting on top of the bar, like even the glue tar had decomposed. gross.

I am in the Jeff Rath camp of: Get that silly thing(mute) off my bass!

I don't use the mutes either but in my typical fashion, I had the mute bar chromed and then used a narrower strip of foam from a toaster pad so you can see the chrome. The narrower pad also makes it easier to adjust the bridge heighth from the front.

I got all new screws (pickguard, bridge, pup surround, pup height adjust, jack plate, etc.) from RIC, along with the ROS kit, new mute pads, & polishing cloths for all my Ricks.
I figured that even if I never use the mute, at least it should be functional, and the shiny new screws really look much better than the cruddy, chewed up 30 year old ones.

I like the weight of the Hipshot. Now I want one for my neck-diving 4000!