Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hi

Well I finally found the last packing crate. My spare set of wavy Grover machine heads must be in it I thought ... but no. Instead I found these. The only basses I can remember changing machine heads on are Rics, but these just don't seem right. The posts are 1/2" and they're two-a-side reverse wind.

Any help IDing what bass they may have come from will be welcomed.





Just spent five minutes breathing on one of them and rubbing it with a piece of kitchen towel, it's come up a treat. Shiny, but with a lovely patina. Oh, and there was a nice little envelope with all the (what look like) the original fixing screws tucked away with them.

Nice!! They are Klusons. These were used on early to late 60's basses until the Grovers came in to use. They they were used in the 70's & 80's sporadically. The ferules changed to plastic but you have the small metal ones, which is nice. These are straight barrels. The Klusons I have on my 60's 4001's have an hour glass shape to them.

The v63 c64's have they same but yours are nickel, which gives you the nice deep patina you have. Chrome looks cheap when compared to a nickel plating!!

You see these on eBay for $200+. They stay there for ever at that price. I have a spare set of Kluson tuners and grabbed them off ebay for half of that, last year.


Sepp

Hey thanks!

That almost, kind of, makes some sort of sense, to me, that is. I have an MIA 4001 (long, boring story) that these may have come from. I briefly worked in a couple of music shops in the '70s and '80s, and "hung out" a fair bit, so if anything shiny turned up that was a direct replacement for something I had that was less shiny, and cheap, I'd grab it. Not sure I could honestly say I remember doing it, though (my twenties ... if you say you remember them, you weren't really there!)

$200 sounds like a prize. I know I paid nowhere near that for their replacement.

All I want is set of wavy Grovers for my basket case 4000.

Unless anyone shouts out, "No! They're off a Gibson!" within a couple of days I'll offer to trade them in the Maketplace.

Again, thank you.

I'll take a peek at the 64 4001 I have here vacationing at me house to see if the barrels are like yours or hour glass shape. I did a quick search on ebay and all the Klusons off of Rickenbackers there are hour glass shape.

II can't help you on the set of wavy Grovers. I only only have two. There were spares for my 73 4001.

Sepp

Er ... as long as one of them is bass side (I need an A), we may be able to work something out ...

These will not fit a Rick... they are 1/2" posts. The Rick Kluson tuners have a 3/8" post.

Well that's why I thought they were wrong for a Ric.

Any idea where they're from?

Mark, those are tuners Gibson used on their Ripper basses for a short time. They started using Schaller tuners which look almost the same as your Klusons, but which are stamped "Gibson" on the baseplate. I've seen some which were nickle, but most of the Schaller tuners were chrome plated.


Jim

I had a NOS set of Gibson tuning keys for a Thunderbird that a guy in Cal. bought from me to help restore his. I got them from the estate of Bill DeArango, along with 5 NOS keys for a Firebird (I don't know what happened with the 6th key) I sold those too, I guess someone had 1 key and needed 5 more! Here are a couple of photos of the T-Bird (with those tuning keys on it).

Note how they look the same other than mine had longer shafts for the keys.

FabGearHead wrote:Mark, those are tuners Gibson used on their Ripper basses for a short time. They started using Schaller tuners which look almost the same as your Klusons, but which are stamped "Gibson" on the baseplate. I've seen some which were nickle, but most of the Schaller tuners were chrome plated.


Jim

Hi Jim

Did the Rippers have reverse tuners?

jps wrote:I had a NOS set of Gibson tuning keys for a Thunderbird that a guy in Cal. bought from me to help restore his. I got them from the estate of Bill DeArango, along with 5 NOS keys for a Firebird (I don't know what happened with the 6th key) I sold those too, I guess someone had 1 key and needed 5 more! Here are a couple of photos of the T-Bird (with those tuning keys on it).

Note how they look the same other than mine had longer shafts for the keys.

Jeff, please stop posting pics like those. Fortunately it's the last day of the New Year holiday today, so no work (whoopee!), but I still have things to do. And the wife is looking at me in a stranger than normal way. So please, no more pics that make me drool uncontrollably.

Thank you.

PS Please post more pics ...

You mean like these?

First pic ... a refined piece of erotica, sir.

The others just left me a little confused

Please may I have more like the green one and the weighty pair above

GoldenGloryOrn wrote:The others just left me a little confused

Ah, so you don't understand modern classics, yet.

I'm afraid I'm disappointingly old school.

(And I will never have the hots for a coffee table!)