Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Have recently aquired a 4001. Curious to know if Fender flats put too much tension on the neck?

Probably so. I wouldn't take the risk.

Fender flats are actually D'Addario Chromes, and they are much higher tension than I would use on a 4001.

If you want flats and it's a pre-'85 neck, go with TI Jazz Flats.

Thanks, I will use them

+1 on the TI's.

there's probably a number of different flats you could use,but like the TI's,you would probably want to stay in a lighter gauge. i used to put 45-105 rounds on my rics, without much problem,when i switched over to flats,typically a 40-100 set seems to exert a similar tension. that is a major generalization i just made there,and some string sets (daddario...) just seem to be higher in tension than others (DR)... for example.
ps i played a c64 with the ti's at the sfo rick-fest last summer,and it was indeed lovely.

My 1976 4001FL handled 45-60-80-105 gauged Fender 9050s with no changes to the setup. Including to the neck, which as remained as dead straight as any neck could ever be... Maybe I just have a great bass though.

Maybe 1976 4001 basses are just great in general. Mine handled the D'Addario Chromes ECB82 set (50-70-85-105) just fine, also with no adjustments (had RotoSound RL66D's on before).

And if any 4001 neck might have problems, one that looks like this might be worse than some:

Pete has my old 81 4001.

It has a VERY STABLE neck, and it is very chunky....ALMOST as chunky as the 2005 4003 necks.

I normally only use TI Flats on any 4001, but THIS bass was the exception and actually had a set of Rotosounds on it with no issues....45-105's.

I've heard that the Fender Flats were very high tension, so I suggested Pete get the consensus of the forum.
Better safe than sorry.

Just some more info for the mix.

+1 for the ECB82 set, I had a set on my 81 4001 for a few years no problems..
but like Tony's old 81 it does have a slightly thicker very stable neck

Thanks for the input. But, these basses are so near and dear to my heart that I think I will go on the side of caution and order the TI's. The neck is thicker, front to back, than my '97; but, the headstock had a definite curve to when sighted. Have seen where Ric's play best when the neck is straight, therefore I put the originals back on and will wait for new strings and truss wrench before doing a set-up. It would be nice to perhaps have a link to the parameters one needs when setting action height and pick up height. Will have to peruse JBN (Joey's Bass Notes) again.

bassman7365 wrote:Have recently aquired a 4001....

Is it that lovely Walnut in your avatar?

I wonder if issues with higher tension strings on old 4001 might be, at least partly, a question of getting the truss rods to work as they should.
I don’t have extensive experience with old 4001 except for my own ’79 Walnut, but still ...

I struggled a lot with the old style truss rods on this bass, without getting the neck flat. I use Plyramid flat wound (don’t know if they are considered high tension), and had relief many would consider very high I believe. Pushed the neck back as far as a dared, tightened the nuts as hard as I dared, but never was able to get it even close to flat. I thought "well, well, the neck just can’t handle the tension of the Pyramids, I’ll have to live with the relief" - until I took the time to examine the rods thoroughly.

I think one challenge with the old rods is to know when they are tight. What I mean is that the only feedback you get is how much force you need to turn the nuts. When it feels like the nuts are hard to turn, it should be because the rods are at high pressure inside the neck, but there are other factors. There is friction between the nuts and the aluminium spacer block and nuts eating into the spacer, friction and possible binding between threads and the spacer, and friction and binding of the chisel end onto the threadings. At close examination that was the problem with my rods.

After fixing these obstacles so that everything runs smoothly, less friction and binding, I had no problems getting the neck flat and even back bow, with little force to turn the nuts.
Experience this dramatic improvement, and how well the old style rods works when everything runs smoothly, I’m wondering if this type of obstacles might play a major part in problems with the old rods and necks not handling higher tension strings.

(I’ll put up some photos and description later to show what I did)

Here goes with photos and . . .

First thing I did was to treat the top flat side of the threaded end. The threading was sticking up a tiny little bit, making the surface ...coarse (didn’t find the right word ; ), resulting in a lot of friction and stuff for the chisel edge of the other end to get stuck on. Smoothed the surface with a file for the chisel end to slide easily without getting hooked up on grooves or anything.

Next I counter-chisel the other end from the underside, and rounded off the lower edge. One reason for this was to get a rounded of edge, that will slide easier than the sharp chisel edge, on top of the threaded end. The other reason was to elevate that sharp chisel edge, so that it's pressed into the aluminium block a little higher, instead of trying to almost force itself into the hole as the original chisel did.

My rods did not have any washers when I got it, so the nuts were eating on the aluminium block. A couple of steel washers fixed that. I also greased up the threading and washers to make everything run smooth as butter.

Don’t know which of these fixes was most important, maybe it was only the washers , but the sum total is that the old style rods that previously didn’t do much, are now a dream to work with.

Also, thanks to aceonbass for a great tip on how to bullet-end the truss rods nuts, making it much easier to get the wrench onto the nuts.
viewtopic.php?p=676478#p676478

NO! Fender Flats do NOT put too much tension on a neck! That is absolute ********. This is especially true of the new 9050CL set of 45-60-80-105, which approaches the gauges of a stock RIC set, and are very well balanced and sound fantastic, with just the right amount of growl to complement a 4001/3.

Now it is confusing. The strings were Fender 9050MLs, .05-.065-.085-.100. They sounded great, but not quite sure.