Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Was the surround replaced at some point? I was looking at some photos of Chris with his RM1999 and I see the string cutout looks different in one photo with a much wider shallower radii to the ends near the adjustment screw areas, compared to later photos of Chris' bass that has cutouts like that of modern Rick basses.
The early one's cutout looks like the one I asked Dane to do for me when he reshaped my RI surround (I did grind away a bit more to make it look like that of a '63 4001S in a book I have).
This looks more like that on the 1970 photo of Chris.

Here's a close-up of Squire's bass in 2012 - don't know if that helps with the postulatin'.

Wow what a shot, thanks for posting Mark, you can even see the mute base plate with the individual secondary plates for the angle of the rubbers.

What kind of pup bobbin is that in there.

Great photo, Mark! Where's the rest of it?

That photo definitely adds to the shorter cutout area on the surround. What we need are good, clear photos of the surround from the '60s as the one 1970 photo, obviously is not great but does hold up enough when enlarged to see that the cutout goes almost to the ends of the shoe opening on it, which is why I think the current was may have been put on the bass during a restoration at some point after 1970.

Here are some cropped and slightly enlarged photos that show the (I assume) old, original surround on Chris' RM1999. Zoom in and you can see this is clearly different to the one one the bass, now.

Yeah, Sean. Aren't those old three-piece mutes plates a trip?

The "Full Christopher":

To me, it looks like the same surround in all the photos. Just my 2 cents.

The rubber looks to be long gone, that being said the mute has not been heard since "Onward"

Eden.

The mute pad on my RM has totally disolved, too. But the one in my '68 is still hanging tough, albeit disheveled and decayed.

Ya'll just crack me up sometimes! No telling how many times that bass has been refinished and re-worked over the years.

What I like about Mark's photo is how warn the tone and volume knobs are! Oh the stories they could tell just by them selves!

walker wrote:Yeah, Sean. Aren't those old three-piece mutes plates a trip?

RM 1999 mute bar (1)closeup.jpg

Actually, that is a pretty nice idea, fully adjustable.

johnallg wrote:

walker wrote:Yeah, Sean. Aren't those old three-piece mutes plates a trip?

RM 1999 mute bar (1)closeup.jpg

Actually, that is a pretty nice idea, fully adjustable.

Not really John as the rubbers covered the screws, funny my 70 has a plate that's 3/32 thick and flat too?.

What I like about Mark's photo is how warn the tone and volume knobs are! Oh the stories they could tell just by them selves!

That's exactly what I was looking at!

johnallg wrote:Actually, that is a pretty nice idea, fully adjustable.

Making the plate curved made this bit of over engineering redundant as the foam mute would conform to the curve which matches the arc of the string plane.