ebay vintage 4001 import horror

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old_picker
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ebay vintage 4001 import horror

Post by old_picker »

A 1979 Rickenbacker Jetglow 4001 bass arrived at my workshop some time ago literally smashed to pieces. The center section comprising the neck and body center beam was bent at the 11th fret and the timbers had shattered just below the headstock to about the 5th fret and delaminated at the butt. The wings luckily had popped off cleanly. To make things worse a couple of the major fractures had been clumsily glued with epoxy around the 1st to 3rd fret.

The project brief was to salvage what I could and build it into a useable bass. I had the wings, bridge, tuners, nut, a bunch screws and springs and the electronics. The entire center beam was toast so with the budget allowed I decided to rebuild the center beam including the neck and headstock and attach what I could salvage.

The budget disallowed a full restoration so the job brief was to make a playable bass using what could be salvaged from the original. First thing to be dropped was the distinctive "sharks fin" fingerboard inlays which were replaced by the dots used in the 60's models. [see the McCartney Rickenbaker bass] It was decided to use a standard preslotted 34" scale 12" radius fingerboard. The 33.25" x 10" radius Rickenbacker board would have to have been radiused and slotted by hand

Wiring is the original 79 with original pots and caps and knobs. The jacks were dodgy so I replaced those. It got a new guard, bass pickup and the rest is original from the 79 4001.

If you are interested there are more pics and a detailed log of the building process available here
http://www.carltonguitars.com.au/resources/html/gallery/ric_4001.htm

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After a good deal of work the following rebuilt "customised" 4001 emerged from the workshop

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bassduke49
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Re: ebay vintage 4001 import horror

Post by bassduke49 »

Welcome. Beautiful work! Thanks for showing it to us!
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Kopfjaeger
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Re: ebay vintage 4001 import horror

Post by Kopfjaeger »

Nice job saving her from the scrap heap!! :D

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jps
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Re: ebay vintage 4001 import horror

Post by jps »

Nice job saving this bass. 8)
clankchris
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Re: ebay vintage 4001 import horror

Post by clankchris »

Awesome!
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ilan
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Re: ebay vintage 4001 import horror

Post by ilan »

Very nice job. Just one small detail: the hand-rest (pickup cover) is way too high, the springs are probably on the wrong side, look here for the correct assembly:

http://www.rickenbacker.com/pdfs/bpickups.pdf
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Denge
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Re: ebay vintage 4001 import horror

Post by Denge »

Fantastic job! That looks great.
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Gilmourisgod
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Re: ebay vintage 4001 import horror

Post by Gilmourisgod »

gggoattt wrote:Should have left the veneer off of the headstock and used some better condition knobs...
Tough Crowd! Well, this is the Altar of the Most Holy Rickenbacker. I for one am impressed that you managed to salvage this from the woodpile, an make it a Mapleglo to boot. Most builders would have gone back to Jetglo to play it safe.That looks like someone had a Pete Townsend moment on it. Was the fingerboard not salvageable? You could probably put just the fingerboard on E-Bay for crazy money and somebody would snap it up in a heartbeat. Nice work!
Last edited by Gilmourisgod on Wed Jun 18, 2014 11:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: ebay vintage 4001 import horror

Post by blueflamerick »

Wow! Looks great!
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Lefty4003S8
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Re: ebay vintage 4001 import horror

Post by Lefty4003S8 »

Are you sure it's the same bass???? :lol: :lol:

AWESOME job!!!!!!!!!
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teeder
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Re: ebay vintage 4001 import horror

Post by teeder »

Nice job. How's the intonation with the different scale, or did you move the bridge / TP?
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Ontario_RIC_fan
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Re: ebay vintage 4001 import horror

Post by Ontario_RIC_fan »

Nice rebuild of the 4001 - although the dot inlays look odd on a bass with binding.. Still well done!

Was this the bass you rebuilt it from? Likely not I know as this one has black trim. :o
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johnhall
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Re: ebay vintage 4001 import horror

Post by johnhall »

teeder wrote:Nice job. How's the intonation with the different scale, or did you move the bridge / TP?
No need to move the bridge at all. Since it was an entirely new neck and fingerboard, it would have been just a simple calculation to figure out where the neck should go between the body wings.
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8mileshigher
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ebay vintage 4001 import horror

Post by 8mileshigher »

jps wrote:Nice job saving this bass. 8)
+1 on what Jeff said, Ray !! I really enjoyed the step-by-step photo essay of this re-build on your Ray Carlton Guitars web-site. Thanks for sharing.
old_picker
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Re: ebay vintage 4001 import horror

Post by old_picker »

thanks to asll for the positive comments they are most appreciated
thanks Ilan for pointing up my error with the treble pickup

no it is not the bass in the picture brian - not sure what you mean by "dot inlays look odd on a bass with binding"

and to gggoattt - yep i bought new knobs but they were push on jobs from allparts and ok for modern pot split shafts - this bass had solid 1/4 shafts and needed grub screws
no time to import real ones - i had to get this baby out into the world and i am sure my client will buy some if he wants newies
the veneer - well there was a good reason i did that - i will leave that subject open to conjecture

kevin - i put a good deal of effort into the positioning of everything and it intonates perfectly - it was only a matter setting up the 12th fret in the correct location in relation the saddles
from there it had to be correct - i guestimated the saddle position and at final setup time only minor adjustments were necessary - btw i found a small philips head screwdriver with a right angle bend about 3/8" from the tip an ideal tool to easily adjust saddle throw
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