Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

As promised here is the thread on the restoration of my 1977 Mapleglo 4002. Serial # QI 3871. As you may remember I snagged this off of ebay. Pretty much, I won a 4002 carcass with electronics. The bridge was missing as were the tuners. The ebony fingerboard had a few nasty cracks in it right down the middle. Both body wings showed signs of partial separation and the neck, well you could feel the three different pieces of wood.

Regardless of what the prior owner stated, this bass was in the water for a period of time. Remarkably both pups both ohmed out to spec. The harness was in shambles so I had Dane Wilder build me a new harness with better pots and caps. I had him add a push pull to the treble tone pup to bypass the cap. I repaired the chips to the guard and polished it. The 4002 TRC needed no work, thankfully!!

I contacted Larry Davis and sent him pictures early on, in hopes he would agree to take on restoring this instrument. Thankfully he agreed and I was added to his list. I shipped the bass out last week and it arrived in Larry's shop. After having it in hand, he gave me a best and worse case scenario. It seems this instrument will have to be completely disassembled, trued and reassembled!! This should make for one heck of a photo documentary of the process!!

Sent me numerous fotos of the bass in it's original condition and during the process to remove the fretboard.

The bass upon it's arrival

One of the cracks to the fretboard

Body wing separation

Nasty, huh??

Neck separation

Larry is very enthusiastic about the project and he is confidant that it will turn out fine. The water seems to have made it a bit easier to separate the sections. That's a good thing, right?? The truss rods are very rusty but they will clean up fine and work just as they were designed. The staining to the wood is minimal and it should be able to stay Mapleglo! That was important to me.

Stay tuned and I'll update this thread as the process continues.

Sepp

OK, the fotos refused to layout properly so I'll add them here.
Fretboard removal process
Almost off
Taa-Daaa!!
Nah, this bass was never in water!!
Truss rod foto, adjustment end.

Sepp

Great to see this get saved from the woodpile!

...uh or bog...

Cool! This will be fun to watch!

CJ,

I agree!! Grab your pop corn and a few beers!! It should get worse before it starts to get better but it will all be positive progress! Actually, I was sweating it out for a few days. Larry really did not know if the neck could be saved until he got the fingerboard off. In the rear foto of the neck, you can see light grooves in the finish. Larry thinks a rasp file was taken to the neck in areas. While I can't tell by the fotos, the shedua strip seems to be somewhat level with the slabs of maple where the fretboard sat. The backside of the neck is uneven. So much so that you can feel the shedua strip is raised and not in line with the maple. I'm hoping that not a lot of maple has been removed from the backside of the neck. The necks on Dave Pascoe's 4002 is very slim. I really don't need or want this one to be skinnier.

Larry is confidant he can get all three sections apart trued and back together properly. Personally, I feel I'm not out of the woods until it actually happens.

Sepp

Watching with much interest. This should be good.

johnallg wrote:Watching with much interest. This should be good.

Thanks this is going to be a great process to watch!

OK, Larry has done a bit of work to my 4002. After 5 hours of working with it, he was able to get both body wings off the neck. The treble side came off relatively easy but the bass side had a ton of glue holding it together. At this point I do not know if all this glue was done as a "repair" but it's apart so that is a plus. It came apart pretty cleanly. I'm impressed. I hope the neck comes apart as well!!
Heating up the joints & the glue that holds them together.

Success!! Well, half anyway!
The "bass" side wing

Ta-Daaaa!!


Sepp

Cool stuff Sepp, loving this thread.

Oh yeah! Now it's getting good! The neck is apart now! Split into three strips, two maple portions and the shedua center strip! These fotos are not for the faint of heart!! When I saw them I got that deep in my core feeling like I was on the first vertical drop of an old wooden roller coaster. yeah, that feeling!!
Soften that glue!!
More heat!!
Some special attention from the heat lamps!
For me, the scariest foto so far! Check out how the headstock looked likes a peeled banana skin!!

Sepp

Cool photos! Interesting to see the process!


'Course, I might be feeling differently if it were mine...

Now that it's completely deconstructed, the neck pieces all need to be cleaned of all glue residue. So from here everything is part of the rebuilding phase. Kinda like the halfway point, sorta, kinda, not really!! I do see light at teh end of the tunnel!
All laid out!
Betcha never seen a foto like this before!!
Thanks to Larry Davis for his patience in deconstructing this instrument!! Thanks also to Larry for the great fotos and the detailed updates on it's progress. I really feel like part of the process!!

Sepp

Awesome, Sepp, and you're right. Never saw a neck looking like that before, nor I hope not ever again. Larry is truly an artist.