Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Here's this one.









SK coded, so I think that's a 1979, yes?

I've the original case for this one; what's the best case available for my black 1981?

Correct - November of 1979.

Odd about this one.. No shedua strip on a 79
SK letters on the jackplate look a little funky.

nov_1981 wrote:Odd about this one.. No shedua strip on a 79
SK letters on the jackplate look a little funky.

The pictures make this look a bit like mapleglo, but it looks a bit more like an ambered white, which would cover the shedua strip...

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that this is a yellowed white (see pic #3 in particualr). Love those. I see no wood grain at all, which suggests a painted finish. Nice. But where's the rest of the hardware?

cjj wrote:The pictures make this look a bit like mapleglo, but it looks a bit more like an ambered white, which would cover the shedua strip...

Yeah.. my bad

Definitely white.

I have a mapleglo 4001 made in Dec 1979, SL, it's a great sounding bass, has the bridge allen screws right into the wood of the body instead of the tailpiece like a lot of these, there's no tip and I think it sounds better. It's difficult to tell the difference in pictures between an old white and a maplglo, especially when there is shine.

This is definitely a yellowed white bass; some hardware I had off because I was changing the strings and setup whilst trying to silence a rattle from one of the truss rods. Glad to read that like the guitars, the basses have user serviceable rods! We'll try the heatshrink tubing as a replacement for the electrical tape.

The bridge is an upgrade although I've kept the original. I adore the sound of this one.

Is the shedua strip the piece of wood down the center of the neck? You can see it's borders by virtue of the shrunken laquer.

I'll search the thread for a case recommendation.

Yes, the dark wood strip down the middle of the neck-through-body is Shedua. It was added into the production of the 4001 in either late 1971 or early 1972 and was present through the end of 4001 production in the early 1980s. It supposedly strengthened the neck back in the days when relatively high-tension round-wound strings were in vogue. Some older basses were warping under the tension, so reinforcements were called in.

The shedua strip was also added to the 4000 and 4001S models at the same time, then shortly after, these two were redesigned slightly to have a set neck, and only the neck had the strip. I believe the body was cut from a single plank of maple, so there was no need to laminate body wings to the central neck-through-body. This was more economical in worker time and wood usage, too.

Josh, the "plastic shell" form-fitting cases made for Rickenbacker are the best, IMO, because they fit the bass excatly and don't allow any "slop" as do some other after-market cases. They show up on eBay every now and then.