Madein1962

"I’m not convinced the preamp is the original (I’ll do a thread in technical to ask about that)" For comparison, you can take a look at parts.vigierguitars.com This is a company that was founded by Patrice Vigier, I believe. It sells genuine replacement parts and has both a 2 and 3 band EQ listed for the Excess.

Hi itu Done and done 👍 I cleaned the board with isopropyl and gave the pots and pickup connectors etc a shot of Deoxit D5. Hopefully all will be well. The pots have some numbers on them but I haven't been able to properly identify them yet.

As I currently have my Rickenbacker 2030 Hamburg Bass in pieces (pending a refinish); I thought it would be a good opportunity to take some pics of the components, for anyone who might be curious. Obviously, there aren't too many of these around in the UK and I haven't seen any images of the pickups / controls online. These Basses have sometimes been wrongly described as being active. The Bass is fully passive but has the controls are mounted on a circuit board. The pickups are single coil hum cancelling and are apparently the same as the pickups in the 3000 / 3001 Basses but with a different mounting. The 2030 pickups are secured and adjusted from the rear of the body. In addition, there is a small "circuit board" on the rear of the pickups. A further difference is that the 3000 series pickups are wax sealed; the 2030 pickups appear to be sealed in epoxy.

This seems to be inline with my '78 4001 and '81 4001S. Quickly measured with the strings on, pressed down - approx 26mm front to back, all the way along the neck. Lots of caveats obviously. RICs seem to vary in 'feel' quite a bit, even for the same model made around the same time. There's no guarantee that the one you're looking at will have a similar neck profile unless the seller can supply the measurements. Hope this is of some use to you.

I'm pretty sure this model should have a dual Truss Rod and this has obviously never had one. The bridge saddles look like the Allparts replacements rather than genuine Ric. Also, I believe the pickups should be a horseshoe and a toaster on this model. The wiring doesn't look like factory. The pickup routing does look off, even by Ric standards. Overall, this looks like a really nice bass but, I would lean towards it not being a Rickenbacker.

Just a few things to consider The fingerboard has a lacquered finish which, I believe, is applied at the factory after the frets are fitted. You can see the finish on the sides of the frets in your pictures. This obviously adds to the difficulty of removing the old frets without making a mess of the fingerboard. Rickenbacker doesn't sell fret wire so you'll need to decide what's going to be used. Stewmac sells what is supposed to be the nearest equivalent. Whoever does the work will need to be familiar with vintage Rickenbacker's, specifically the Truss Rod adjustment. This will have dual Truss Rods which shouldn't be used to adjust the neck relief. The neck needs to be manually bent into position and the Truss Rods then nipped up to hold it in position. £400 doesn't sound totally ridiculous if the work is done by someone who has experience of working on these. Having said all of this; most of the frets that I can see, appear to have some life left in them and could probably be revived. The one with the big dent under the D string might still be salvageable. The key is to find a knowledgeable luthier to advise on what is possible.

Re the Bridge, the Ric tailpiece won't necessarily develop serious tail lift. Even if it does start to lift a little, it probably won't affect the playability. There are plenty of 4001s out there with the original tailpiece. Having said that; the Hipshot is a much easier bridge to work with. Intonation and string heights are easier to adjust and it's a drop in replacement for the original. Avoid the ones made of brass as they are ridiculously heavy Hipshot make or made replacement tuners (HB5) in chrome or black. Be aware that there are two different size ferrules. You will need to check the size of the holes in the headstock and specify which size you need. Pickguards / scratch plates can be a problem as the exact shape and size varies quite a bit, as does the position of the holes on the 4001. Robbie at Rickysounds is very helpful and knowledgeable so, it's worth a call. I think your options are either a custom pickguard with the holes in the right place or an off the shelf pickguard that might require holes to be drilled in the right place Rickysounds offers pickguards for various production years so you might get lucky with one of them

Fortunately there's nothing too radical here. It could easily be put back to stock. Most of the changes are pretty standard replacements/ upgrades. As the bass was quite beat up and in need of TLC when I bought it; I opted to put all of the bits I wanted to try, into a single project. It still looks and feels like a RIC. Even the colour is an approximation of a special edition that RIC did, a few years ago. Rickenbacker have changed pretty much everything on the 4000 series basses over time so, is a RIC even a RIC? 🤷‍♂️

Yep, you're right about the jack plate, as it has the serial number stamped on it. The knobs are vintage type replacements from Rickysounds if I remember rightly, so probably RIC. Thinking about it; the jack plate is the only part that is original to the bass. Even the pickup surround is a replacement which had been rechromed. 😀

My vanity project 4001S with everything renewed / replaced. The only RIC bit left on it, is the bridge pickup surround.

@dmc79 the Tourtech Pro weighs slightly less than the gator abs TSA case, according to my luggage scales but, still over 5kg.

Thanks for the info and pics GeeCee. The serial numbers and names appear to be difficult to pin down precisely. I think I'd read on an old Thread, that 3 were made with the alembic headstock (in addition to Number 1) The rear of the Mark King headstock reads 'Supernatural Bass (Classic)' and the serial appears to be 0003 SA Mine reads 'Supernatural Classic Bass' and has a serial S 0051 CA Working strictly from serial numbers, you'd assume that this bass with the alembic headstock was made after Mark's with the standard headstock. I'm not sure we'll ever know but, I'm happy with my bass regardless.

Hi, Thanks I'm not convinced it's the same Bass that J.D. thinks it is but, it's still a very early one. Apparently the wood is Zebrano which John was using quite a bit in the early years. I suspect that they have seen an increase. When I took mine in to be serviced, I was told that they had 200 jobs on the books. I don't know whether they are all new builds. I suspect it includes refurbs, refinishes, repairs etc. I believe they're planning to turn the existing workshop into a woodwork shop and that Toby is joining Jaydee full time rather than operating independently as T Dog to cope with the workload. They're certainly not short of work.