Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

New to the forum here, got my first Ric ('84 4003 Jetglo) earlier this year and now I'm hooked.

Traded a Les Paul Jr. for this guy. At first I thought the bridge pickup was replaced or repaired but it appears to be a "green" high gain unit. It's obviously been refinished, and the jack plate is gone so no serial number.



Pots date to '74.



Pickup surround looks like the later 4003 type with the "cut" to allow for lower action. The mute section of the bridge has been heavily molested as well.



What's with the four screw holes at the corners? Doesn't seem like the right thing to me. Skunk stripe says post '72 but I have read here that the green top pickups were done by then. '74 seems reasonable but the pickup says no.



Thanks for the help! I'd love to get this thing refinished, but I don't want to put a ton of cash into it. Opinions on the best affordable guy(s) out there?

'74/'75 given the basic features on it with the exception of the bridge pickup. Are you planning to sell it or keep it and fix it up?

I was planning to keep it.

Good to hear. This could be a fun project; I assume you're going to refinish it, have you found any evidence of the original finish in any cavities.

BTW, the tuning keys are the old late '50s/early '60s style, very cool.

jps wrote:'74/'75 given the basic features on it with the exception of the bridge pickup. Are you planning to sell it or keep it and fix it up?

Yep. Crazy stuff people do to their instruments.

From looking at the pics I would guess it was Mapleglo originally... The Truss Rod cover is the raised type and would not have been original to a 74 or 75.

But it is a real Rickenbacker to my eye, and I kind of like the weird paint job... So I would say a good score! Congrats.

Congrats on the cool snag and WELCOME Matthew!

Flea probably owned this bass.

I picked up the 40001 today and it actually plays pretty well! The electronics have been messed with a bit - there are just two mono jacks and each pickup only feeds one. The bridge tone knob is broken and has been glued to the pot shaft, but everything works OK. The frets are in good shape, and the tuners hold tune fine although the G tuner is missing the headstock bushing.

The top hasn't been painted. It is decoupaged. It's a super-thick layer of paint on top of fabric. So I played a hunch and it paid off.



I heated up the finish with a heat gun right at the neck pickup cavity and then put a thin screwdriver under the finish.



The finish started to come up in big pieces.



And more pieces.



The decoupage varnish reacted with the original finish so a lot of it came up.



Finally I took off the rest of the original finish with the heat gun and a razorblade.



The binding is a bit messed up in a few spots, so I'm debating my options now. If I can find someone to re-bind and re-finish I might go forward with it. I don't want to be into this bass for too much money, right now it's worth more than I paid for it as it sits. A high-end refinish would be great but I don't want to be in this bass for more than maybe another $500 including all the hardware I need to replace (bridge, mute, knobs, etc.)

Any recommendations for a good finish guy near Raleigh, NC?

Hi Matthew!


Wow!, that is a start for a new member!

So, at first: Welcome!

It seems You are the right one to recover this instrument's beauty!
I can not wait to see further pics!

Good luck further on!

The four screw holes on the back of the body could be from a "protective" plastic
cover.
The Gibb bass (DH163) had a perspex sheet like a pickguard on the back when I bought it back in the 70s.

pag wrote:The four screw holes on the back of the body could be from a "protective" plastic
cover.
The Gibb bass (DH163) had a perspex sheet like a pickguard on the back when I bought it back in the 70s.

What a weird kind of a "solution"! - To avoid buckle of the paint surface (clear coat is quite easy to rapair!) people drill holes straght into the body.

BTW: What is uglier, some scratches or a giant plastic protective shield? - Well,...

Maybe some maple plugs with a compatible grain can correct this very fine. I think deep in this forum there is a thread from our user "jingle_jangle" that shows great results in doing that.

Hotzenplotz wrote:

pag wrote:The four screw holes on the back of the body could be from a "protective" plastic
cover.
The Gibb bass (DH163) had a perspex sheet like a pickguard on the back when I bought it back in the 70s.

What a weird kind of a "solution"! - To avoid buckle of the paint surface (clear coat is quite easy to rapair!) people drill holes straght into the body.

BTW: What is uglier, some scratches or a giant plastic protective shield? - Well,...

Maybe some maple plugs with a compatible grain can correct this very fine. I think deep in this forum there is a thread from our user "jingle_jangle" that shows great results in doing that.

Sure, a plug cutter would make nice neat plugs, and there's not a lot of grain going on in the body there. Drill the holes out a bit (3/16" or 1/4" would do it,) sink the plugs, then cut them off with a flush-cutting saw. Not hard to do.

I saw Verdine White's bass at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame a few years back and he had done something similar with the rear cover. Apparently he really liked big belt buckles...

Couple of questions for the membership here:

1. If this bass was indeed Mapleglo, would a black pickguard have been standard? The guard does not appear to have been messed with, and the bass is a 4001 rather than a 4003 for sure. The pots date to '74 and everything on the plate looks sanitary to me.

2. Ontario_RIC_fan mentioned that the TRC should not have had the raised lettering - what would have been correct for this bass?

3. Should a '74 have the high gain neck pickup or a toaster? All of the basses I've seen with green bridge pickups have toaster necks and tug bars + white guards ('69-71ish.) The bridge pickup is either a leftover that got put in or (more likely) a replacement. The bridge pickup surround is the later 4003 type with the "cut" under the strings. My 4003 is an '84 and has the 7-screw tailpiece + uncut pickup surround so I might just swap the surrounds.

4. Pointers on the correct binding to use for repairs? It's all single-ply so I don't think it will be that hard to do. I'm just going to cut out the cracked pieces and patch in new stuff with Duco cement.

5. Anybody have a spare jack plate? That's the only thing I can't find at a reasonable price.

To question #5:

I think they offer the right ones for reasonable prices (50$):
http://www.winfieldvintage.com/parts/jackplate.html

Disasterarea wrote:

Hotzenplotz wrote:

pag wrote:The four screw holes on the back of the body could be from a "protective" plastic
cover.
The Gibb bass (DH163) had a perspex sheet like a pickguard on the back when I bought it back in the 70s.

What a weird kind of a "solution"! - To avoid buckle of the paint surface (clear coat is quite easy to rapair!) people drill holes straght into the body.

BTW: What is uglier, some scratches or a giant plastic protective shield? - Well,...

Maybe some maple plugs with a compatible grain can correct this very fine. I think deep in this forum there is a thread from our user "jingle_jangle" that shows great results in doing that.

Sure, a plug cutter would make nice neat plugs, and there's not a lot of grain going on in the body there. Drill the holes out a bit (3/16" or 1/4" would do it,) sink the plugs, then cut them off with a flush-cutting saw. Not hard to do.

I saw Verdine White's bass at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame a few years back and he had done something similar with the rear cover. Apparently he really liked big belt buckles...

Couple of questions for the membership here:

1. If this bass was indeed Mapleglo, would a black pickguard have been standard? The guard does not appear to have been messed with, and the bass is a 4001 rather than a 4003 for sure. The pots date to '74 and everything on the plate looks sanitary to me.

2. Ontario_RIC_fan mentioned that the TRC should not have had the raised lettering - what would have been correct for this bass?

3. Should a '74 have the high gain neck pickup or a toaster? All of the basses I've seen with green bridge pickups have toaster necks and tug bars + white guards ('69-71ish.) The bridge pickup is either a leftover that got put in or (more likely) a replacement. The bridge pickup surround is the later 4003 type with the "cut" under the strings. My 4003 is an '84 and has the 7-screw tailpiece + uncut pickup surround so I might just swap the surrounds.

4. Pointers on the correct binding to use for repairs? It's all single-ply so I don't think it will be that hard to do. I'm just going to cut out the cracked pieces and patch in new stuff with Duco cement.

5. Anybody have a spare jack plate? That's the only thing I can't find at a reasonable price.

The March '73 4001 I have has a padded vinyl cover on the back held on with a few snaps; the very first 4001 that I saw back in the early '70s also had one and I (personally) thought that was a cool idea, sort of like the ones used by Gretsch but more form fitted, not circular.

1. Yes, given the '74 and later era of your bass the black pickguard could be standard, but a black plexi TRC would have also been on that bass as standard, so we know with certainty that the TRC is a later replacement.

2. See above.

3. A '74 4001 could have had either a toaster or a hi-gain neck pickup as this was a transitional period for features and parts on Ricks. The pickup surround is correct with the cutouts for that era. The bridge pickup, as mentioned earlier, is most likely a replacement as, by then IIRC, the baseplates were being made of black plastic, not aluminum, not to mention the green bobbin and the type of pole pieces.

4. ABS is what is currently used and it is bonded to the body using acetone mixed in with shavings of the same ABS material.

5. Keep looking.