Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I'm the new (old) guy and I hope this pic of the Ric shows up:

I'm at an internet café in S. america and can't open it, sounds nice though, haha.

Here is Paul Boyer's 1972 Model 4001. I have to say that this is beautiful enough to be a painting.

Hello Paul,

Nice job on this bass (drool)!!!

That's a super fine looking bass, Paul!
You did an excellent job in refinishing and giving her the "burst".
Nice piece of photographic work too. (Best whole bass view photo I've seen in a while.) Did you take the picture at home or in a photo studio?

Here's a sister of your baby,my '72 4001 Fretless MG.
Click "Akiko" here

Quite nice!

Wow... very nice.

The picture was done on a studio digital camera here at my company (Kalmbach Publishing). The only retouching done was to remove my arm and hand (ouch!) that was holding it upright. Since the photo was taken, I replaced the tailpiece which was flaking badly, the treble pickup which wasn't working, and strung new Rotosounds. At this distance, the finish looks fine, but there are a few goobers here and there, nothing that affects its playablitiy though. The clear coat has yellowed some, which looks OK on the wood, but the binding and inlays have a kind of soft golden hue. I'm thinking about replacing the pickguard with one of those cream colored ones I've seen on ebay. It would better match the yellowed binding and not look so starkly white. Watcha think?

A great looking 4001 expertly photographed.
Replacing the pickguard with a cream colored one? What on earth for?
I'm curious: what did you replace the original treble pickup with?

Lovely Ric Paul. I like the idea of the cream pickguard. I recently purchased a '78 MG off of ebay which suffered the same contrast between the bright white p.g. and the UV yellowed binding. The truss rod cover sort of fell in between the two. Since the pickguard was cracked I replaced it with a black pickgaurd and really like the effect.

Thanks for all your comments, guys. When I bought the bass used in 1975, there was a cheapie humbucking pickup installed in the treble position by the previous owner. It didn't work anyway, and when I started to get back into all this, I had a Rick dealer do a "setup" on the bass, and replace the old tailpiece (chrome flaking off) and the unusable pickup. Looks to me that the new one is a "high gain" -- it's black with four round bumps. It works OK now.