Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I saw this and I thought, "Oh my god beautiful!" until I realized that the body looks really weird in that front shot.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Rickenbacker-4001-s-style-vintage-model-bass-guitar_W0QQitemZ7396730761QQcategoryZ4713QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

It looks like someone shaved down the upper side of the bass or something. It's really . . . flattened.

As Sergio has already noted in a different thread, for some unknown reason some set-neck 4001S's have the neck enter the body in a different angle than the neck-throughs.

It's been shaven down, as you mentioned.

It has very little to do with looking "off" or "awkward" simply because the neck enters at a slightly offset angle.

There's a cool 1 1/2 inches of wood missing from the left bottom cheek!

It's been stupidly modded.

And pray tell, why does neck enter at a slightly offset angle?

Sergio: Is the angle of which you speak forward / backward of the plane of the body top? Or is is side to side with the centerline of the body being zero?

It's further towards the short horn.
Since we're discussing it I figured I'd take a measurement.
My '77 4001 is 32mm from the furthest edge of the pickguard to the edge of the neck.
My '76 4000 is 35 mm.

Sergio has quite an eye for detail! I've owned these for years & never noticed the difference!

That 4000 looks very very cool, Kevin.

Except for that, thing - there... Take the Seydunc out!

Hey, come on, I'm sure many of you had already noticed the difference I'm speaking of.
Hmm... As for that SD pickup on your '76 4000, Kevin, I'm feeling tempted to send you a replacement of my own - actually the treble pickup on my March '86 4003 - so that you get rid of that... ahem, very flawed design from the SD stable... My creation has adjustable polepieces (Allen socket screws) and kicks major a** even going through a .0047 capacitor. The exact distance from the E to the G polepiece is 2". Interested?

No, but on Kevin's 4000 bass, it the body shape still looks normal. On the one I linked to, the body itself is weird looking, and not in relation to the neck. Like, the side of it really is not rounded like it should be. The dip in the top of the body isn't there, so the upper horn looks like it extends WAY upwards.

This is the S on eBay:



I Photoshopped a "mask" of it (leaving half the tailpiece, for comparison purposes):



and superimposed it on this innocent new 4003FG:



And I got this [EDIT: better attempt in the next post]:



Which I think demonstrates that they are about the same shape, and how off-center the S-model neck was set. Look at the bridge (I left half of it in the "mask") and where the neck joins the body.

Now if someone who has some real Photoshopping skills could do this properly, I'd be thankful!

Here's a slightly better attempt:



You can see that the bridge on the S looks about 2mm off-center, to the left.

Can this be corrected? Should it be corrected?

I meant 20 mm off-center, not 2.

"Can this be corrected?". Not on any existing 4000. "Should it be corrected?". Definitely - for appearance's sake.

My 81 fireglo S was like that . The horns werent as sharp as a normal rick . Kinda rounded a little . As there is no binding i think the sharpness of the horns are just less pronounced .