Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Just got a beat-up '76 Rickenbacker 4001 bass. Finish was stripped (sort of) by the original owner. It used to be a Red color by the looks of it, but is now maple/natural. There is still some residue/finish here and there, especially on the sides near the binding and the back-side of the bass. I was wondering if anyone had any good products/tips in getting the rest of that junk off. I may as well clean her up nicely to resemble a mapleglo...or a natural finish.

Also: It's smooth, but should I put any product or anything on the body after getting more of that junk off? Lemon oil do the trick every now and then to protect the wood?

Also: Lemon oil OK to use on the ebony fretboard?

Thanks again! Bass sounds AWESOME!

You can use a chemical stripper but I would keep it away from the binding and neck inlays. In those places I would just sand it. If you don't want to respray I would suggest tung oil. Minwax makes a good one but there are many others that work well.

Second on the stripper but be sure to tape off the plastic binding with two layers of quality (3M blue) masking tape. Then sand away any remaining stains. If this bass was originally FG, depending on the year, you may not be able to get it all off...some FGs really stain the maple, some don't.

Now, about that oil--tung oil if it must be oil, BUT note that high-wear areas on maple, like the back of the neck, will rapidly turn grey with use, no matter how often you oil them.

Grahambo, can you post some pictures of your bass? It might help to see it.

You'll definitely want to put some kind of finish on the wood after you're done removing the old finish - Either an oiled finish or a paint finish. If you don't dirt and oils from your hands and elsewhere will get into the wood, and make it look dingy.

I see.

I'm thinking of sanding her down some more, then putting on a light coat/stain on the front, and a darker one on the rear/sides (tape up the binding, of course). That OK to do, or will I ruin the wood? I've never done a re-finish or anything remotely close to this before. Only experience I have is when I restored a WWII Enfield Mk. 1 No. 4 .303 rifle. Not quite the same as a Rickenbacker haha.

Is it cool to use a light stain or anything on this? Or do you guys recommend something else? Or should I consider just taking it to someone to re-finish. Not sure how much that costs. Would be fun to try and do it myself.

Homemade stain jobs gone awry are plentiful, and affectionately referred to with names such as "turd brown", etc. I'd hate to see this happen to you, my friend. My frank non-expert advice is to seal the wood with a clear paste wax and keep resealing the rubbed areas, and you will have a presentable semblance of mapleglo until you either 1) take a course on refinishing, or 2) save up for a pro. Not to dampen your enthusiasm, but it's not easy to do it right the first time out. Your bass deserves to look really great. Maybe you could practice finishing on a more sacrificial cheaper guitar... Just my motherly advice.

I concur with Kira, I'd avoid using a wood stain ... any wood stain will wind up being a permanent finish, making it virtually impossible to do a future refinish. That said, it's your bass, so you can certainly 'have it your way' as you see fit.

I agree, Gary, stains bite deeply into the wood and will probably be permanent. I recommend a clear paste wax rather than oil, for the same reasoning. A good quality car wax with carnuba will give you a deep-looking, hard, glossy, and moderately easily-reversible finish. It just needs to be repeated on the neck, body friction areas every so often.
Let me remind you that I'm not an expert... this has worked on various household and art objects for me.
My main point is to keep the utmost appearance of the bass foremost in consideration. With a great finish that instrument will draw admirers for days.

Yes, please don't use a stain. Paul W, you want to jump in here?

kiramdear wrote: ... Maybe you could practice finishing on a more sacrificial cheaper guitar... Just my motherly advice.

You can try this on a piece of wood of the same type the guitar is made of. In this case, that is maple. Remember you can only stain to go darker no matter how light the stain is. The end grain of the wood will soak up stain like a wick. Maple is a hard wood and will not accept stain as readily as a softer wood so this is to your advantage.

beatlefreak wrote:Yes, please don't use a stain. Paul W, you want to jump in here?

I agree, no stain. Unless you're really expert with stain, there are a hundred things that can go wrong. And, incidentally, maple does not accept stain well, except in figures and end-grain, and then it looks worse. You cannot add more stain to make things darker, at least not on hardwood.

The best factory Rickenbacker finishes are, in fact, tints or dyes that sit on top of the wood, after a sealer coat has been applied to isolate the pigment in the tint from the wood itself. So, in essence, your Rick has gotten a candy (transparent) paint job at the factory (unless it's JG or one of the other opaque finishes RIC has used over the decades).

Most people see a colored hunka wood and right away think "stain"...this comes from longtime practice in crooked-bookshelf magazines like "Popular Wingnuts", or "Chicken Coops Illustrated". But, Kira is correct--"turd brown" is the best you can hope for, and it goes down from there.

(Of course, now somebody will go looking for "successful" stain jobs on guitars to prove me wrong...) It IS true that companies like PRS use aniline dyes (there's that word again), which are "cut" with alcohol, mostly, and which really do penetrate the figured maple tops on their instruments, but this itself is a tricky process with lots of pitfalls for the amateur.

One of my guilty pleasures is late '50s Fender Musicmasters and Duo Sonics. These were low-end student guitars when new, and many were "recycled" through the punk era of the '70s, and post-punk a bit later. You wouldn't believe how many of them have had their lovely Desert Sand nitro finishes stripped, only to be roughly sanded and hit with a coat of stain--results are uniform--uniformly AWFUL. There are lots of these on Ebay, both bodies and complete wrecks, and they're getting expensive, too, and becoming bad value for $$$. Most are the lovely and telltale turd brown.

Stick with a good sprayed-on finish, avoid rattle cans. In short, there is no easy route to a great guitar finish, no matter what ReRanch may claim.

Thanks for checkin' in on this one, Paul. I try to refrain from giving technical answers and advice but this one seemed pretty clear. Would the car waxes be a good safe temporary choice of sealer?

I don't think I'd want wax getting into the grain of the wood.

Hi Graham...

If the bass is the same one you were thinking about buying in another thread (with the cracked neck that was repaired), I'm guessing you bought her to be a utility instrument, a "player" so to speak. You say it plays and sounds great, and I'm happy for you that it does because that's really all that matters. But I'd just leave it the way it is, battle scars and all. It's got character. I'd honestly think twice about investing the man hours into trying to make it look good, when it's really (let's be honest with each other here) never going to be a "looker", no matter what you try to do to it.

You mentioned you were a little short on dough, so I would suspect a complete refin is out of the question for you. Short of a complete refin, I honestly don't think any of the methods suggested by the others here are going yield results that will be much better than its current state. Putting a lot of elbow grease into it for a minimal improvement is sort of a ****** return on investment, if you know what I mean. Not trying to discourage you or anything, but I would guess your time is valuable to you. Besides, I honestly think the bass looks pretty cool the way it is, warts and all.

If you still decide you want to spruce it up, Paul W. is the man you want to listen to.