JapCrap Rickenbacker Copy Restoration

[Bassassin]

Here's something I acquired a few weeks ago. This is an early 70s 4001 copy - it had no brand name on it so I don't know what it was sold as - my guess would be Aria, Aria Pro, Univox or possibly Electra. Either way, it's an Aria/Matsumoku associated copy & broadly speaking these were about as accurate as Rickenfakers got.

There's a bit of a story attached - I've been asked not to go into too much detail by the person I got it from, but the abridged version is that this was being passed off as a real Rick - it had a genuine early 70s 4001 trc and was in a period-correct Rick hardcase. The upshot of this is that some poor sod paid the equivalent of £600 for it, before finding out it was really JapCrap. Fortunately the genuine '73 trc & case are worth a few bob, so that should have helped soften the blow, as well as what I paid for the bass.

These are the pics I was sent before I got the bass - she ain't too pretty, is she?

















I had no idea really if the bass would even be restorable - it had been originally sold as a non-playing, basket-case vintage Rick, after all. I'd been told there was no output through the jacks and that the hardware was in very, very poor condition - which the pics seemed to bear out, so for all I knew I was buying a wall-hanger. Or firewood.

In episode 2 we'll pull it apart, give it a hose down & see if any of the hardware's still metal - or has it all turned into strange green fungus?

Jon.

Edited May 24, 2008 by Bassassin

[Happy Jack]

That looks like a fascinating project, Jon.

Presumably the only way to deal with that degree of corrosion, especially on the bridge, is to strip & re-plate the metal?

The wood looks excellent, and the FakeGlo finish is pretty convincing. Not sure about that binding though - is that the camera or is it really that variable in colour?

[Bassassin]

The stained look around the binding's really very strange - it actually looks as though somebody's attempted to colour it to match the wood - except there's nothing on top of the lacquer. All I can assume is that it's some sort of discolouration associated with the adhesives used to attach the binding, and that's why it's underneath the lacquer. I'll include some clearer pics in my next update.

J.

[wizbat]

She looks like a real gem to me, You,ve just got to love those rosewood stripes thru the neck.
Pure class.

[7string]

Seems as though the patient is in good hands !!

Looking forward to seeing progress !!

[BOD2]

Thanks - very interesting.

That's the worst corrosion I've ever seen on a bridge, or is that green stuff soemthing else ? Maybe it belonged to a punk rocker in the seventies ?

I'm not familiar with rics or their copies. Is that a standard J-bass type pickup at the middle position ?

[paul, the]

Looking forward to this considering what how well that P went. And it's a good start, I'd say.

[Bassassin]

[quote name='BOD2' post='201294' date='May 17 2008, 11:12 PM']Thanks - very interesting.

That's the worst corrosion I've ever seen on a bridge, or is that green stuff soemthing else ? Maybe it belonged to a punk rocker in the seventies ?

I'm not familiar with rics or their copies. Is that a standard J-bass type pickup at the middle position ?[/quote]
It is - or was - corrosion on the bridge, the green "stuff" is a massive build-up of oxidation. It's cleaned up about as well as is possible, but it had eaten away the alloy quite badly. I'll post some "after" pics soon.

The bridge pup is sort of an added bonus - it's a 70s era PAF-stickered DiMarzio split-coil, a bit grubby but in perfect working order. I have a Jazz project which will benefit from this!

More detail & pics to follow...

J.

[Bassassin]

Time for an update - I've cleaned the body/neck and the hardware, and sourced a sort-of appropriate pickup for the bridge position.

I also took a few snaps, so starting with the hardware, a couple of before & afters:





I dismantled everything, stuck all the bits in a plastic tub, doused liberally with WD40 and left for a few days. Mostly everything was covered with surface corrosion, and the plating underneath is largely intact. There was also, particularly on the tuners & plated alloy parts, a sort of deposit which could be scratched off, revealing intact metal underneath. A lot of the crap I just scraped off with my thumbnail, only a few areas needing the attention of a Dremel type tool with a soft wire wheel attachment.

The tailpiece had suffered far more, the corrosion having destroyed the plating & damaged the alloy underneath. This is about as good as it can be cleaned:



The black bits are remaining areas of corrosion - to remove these, I'd have to file away a lot more metal & would probably end up losing the string mute area. It's quite useable as it is - I do have another, the original from my Kasuga copy, but paradoxically the remaining chrome on this one is a lot better - as well as it having a bit less "tail lift"!

Anyway, final hardware porn:



Onto the woodwork. I'm really, really pleased & impressed by what good condition this is all in:



The finish is great for a bass of this age, and the frets, although looking like they've been crowned a couple of times, have no notable wear & plenty of life left. The neck's dead straight with no twists, so I've not had the opportunity to check whether the truss rods work yet!





You see quite a lot of these - copies and genuine Ricks - which have stress cracks between the neck & body wings, at the point where neck & body meet. This one has a very, very mild case of this, just on upper side:



It's a small split, about 2.5cm - I've flooded it with superglue & built up layers of glue over it, which I'll polish to blend with the lacquer. And if you look very closely at this pic, you can see another non - Rick construction feature: two very thin layers of wood (-1mm) sandwiched between the neck sections & skunk stripe.

Here's a clearer picture of that peculiar discolouration around the binding:



I can't offer any other explanation for this other than some sort of reaction from the binding adhesive - although it doesn't affect the neck binding at all. I have never seen this before on any other bass or guitar - if anyone has any idea or hypothesis about this - I'd be intrigued to hear it! Fortunately, it doesn't offend me at all (just as well - the only way to sort it would appear to be a complete refin), I think it adds individuality & character...

This is the pickup I'll be putting in the bridge position, until such time as I get a "proper" Rick/Faker one:



This is a generic 70s JapCrap bass pup, and is the type used in Fujigen Gakki Rick copies, as well as pretty much everything else at one point! It's conveniently the right size to fit the bridge position, as well as having a more appropriate string spacing than the Jazz pup the bass had. Despite appearances, it's a single-coil job, and it'll screw straight onto the alloy baseplate that the old Jazz pup was on. I have no idea what it will sound like - but it measures about 11k - so it'll be loud!

Next job will be to clean up all the screws - they're still all marinading in WD40. Prior to dismantling the bass, I'd been concerned about them - a lot of the heads looked very rusty & I was expecting worse from the threads, even worrying that some might shear when I attempted to remove them. I was pleasantly surprised to find all the threads were bright & clean, and I'm confident the heads will clean well. It's just such a [i]boring[/i] job... Aside from that, I'll just have give the wiring a once-over, and then maybe think about nailing it all back together...

J.

[steve]

i really, really like the grain on the top of this, I'll be interested to see the progress

[robert43]

Very nice work so far I keeping my eye on it

[paul, the]

I can't see any pictures for some reason.

[Bassassin]

Been a slow few weeks in Faker restoration land - I have a load of semi-restored & Ebay-bound JapCrap currently taking precedence...

However - a rather pleasant stroke of luck - spotted a Rick copy tailpiece on t'Bay last week, went for it, despite horrendous postage (well, they don't come up very often!) and it arrived today. The nice surprise bit being - it turned out to be a genuine Rickenbacker part - squared string apertures, casting marks identical to a real one - and because of the imperial dimensions, a bit of non-invasive modding necessary to get my genuine fake bridge to fit! Oh, and it has tail-lift too!

Btw - anyone else having problems seeing pics or is it just Paul?

J.

[thedarxide]

[quote name='Bassassin' post='215858' date='Jun 10 2008, 12:17 AM']Btw - anyone else having problems seeing pics or is it just Paul?

J.[/quote]

I was when the thread was first started, but everything is fine now.

[Happy Jack]

That first full-body photo is a corker - what beautiful wood!

[Buzz]

Jon, is the binding on the body covered by the laquer from the body? If it is, and the neck binding isn't, that could explain why if it's had a reaction to the laquer.

Eitherway, that neck loves lovely, just like glass.

[Bassassin]

[quote name='Buzz' post='216844' date='Jun 11 2008, 01:31 PM']Jon, is the binding on the body covered by the laquer from the body? If it is, and the neck binding isn't, that could explain why if it's had a reaction to the laquer.

Eitherway, that neck loves lovely, just like glass.[/quote]

It is - but it's the whole thing's lacquered, and I'd assume all been done at the same time. Maybe the body binding material's different to the neck & it's that that's reacted. I quite like it anyway, so I don't mind!

J.

[BOD2]

Good results !

How exactly did you clean the metal parts ?

Presumably in cleaning the metal parts, some of the plating will have been removed. Does this mean these parts will corrode and discolour quickly again ?

As an aside...

I recall from school chemistry that the chrome plating often applied to steel parts (especially on cars) prevented corrosion only until the chrome became scratched, at which point is actually accelerated the corrosion of the steel due to a process called "sacrificial protection". The steel (based on iron) would actually corrode to give protection to the chrome due to their relative postions in the table of elements.

[paul, the]

I can see the pics now. BRAVO - what a smart looking bass. I think it'll be some serious porn when it's all put together.

[Bassassin]

[quote name='BOD2' post='216865' date='Jun 11 2008, 02:00 PM']How exactly did you clean the metal parts ?

Presumably in cleaning the metal parts, some of the plating will have been removed. Does this mean these parts will corrode and discolour quickly again ?[/quote]
What's particularly interesting on this bass, is a lot of the crap on the metalwork was a deposit which could just be scraped away. The plating underneath a lot of it looks fine and possibly the only part which might deteriorate is the bridge pickup surround. However, despite the surface rust, it's not down to bare metal & there's no point where the plating's actually peeling - it just looks slightly dulled.

I'm down to significant amounts of bare metal on the tailpiece - but that'll just be going in the spares box, now I've got the genuine Rick part to replace it with.

Like I said, a lot of the oxidation-type deposits I could just scrape off - much of it with my thumbnail! More stubborn stuff, like the surface rust on the steel bits, surrendered to a Dremel - type tool with a soft wire brush attachment - with very little effort. I'm quite confident that the plating's pretty much intact - I've had a reasonable amount of experience [s]tarting up tat[/s] restoring vintage hardware, and it generally ends up pretty presentable with a bit of care & elbow grease.

Glad the pics are working now Paul - & the bass is a beauty under the crap, can't wait to get it playable!

J.

[wizbat]

Hi jon.
how,s the bass coming along?

[Bassassin]

Been on the back burner for a bit, while I try & clear the decks of Ebay-bound JapTat!

I've now got a "proper" Rick copy bridge pup for it, and made it a nifty acrylic trc:

[attachment=10043:trc_with_insert.jpg]

Guess I should pull my finger out & put the bloody thing together!

J.

[phil_the_bassist]

[quote name='Bassassin' post='227030' date='Jun 26 2008, 12:23 AM']Been on the back burner for a bit, while I try & clear the decks of Ebay-bound JapTat!

I've now got a "proper" Rick copy bridge pup for it, and made it a nifty acrylic trc:

[attachment=10043:trc_with_insert.jpg]

Guess I should pull my finger out & put the bloody thing together!

J.[/quote]


Just wondering, how do you go about making your acrylic TRCs?

[paul, the]

That's purdy.

[Bassassin]

[quote name='phil_the_bassist' post='227198' date='Jun 26 2008, 11:18 AM']Just wondering, how do you go about making your acrylic TRCs?[/quote]

Cut from 3 or 4mm perspex sheet, available for buttons on Fleabay. I've just got a scroll saw (£35 from Screwfix) which makes cutting them out quite easy, but previously I've used a jigsaw with a fine blade. The acrylic sheet is plastic covered on both sides, so you can trace a template onto it easily, & when it's cut, I file the edges smooth & down to the template, peel off the plastic and round off/polish the top edges. Acrylic's quite brittle, but the upside is this means it's very easy to cut, shape & polish. I use fine sandpaper to remove file/saw marks, and T-Cut to make it nice & shiny again!

Screwholes were drilled using a Dremel-type tool & a 2mm bit. This is possibly the trickiest part - it's quite hard to mark the acrylic so the drill doesn't slip when starting - and this is the point where the plastic's most likely to crack.

I'm happy to take orders if anyone's interested!

J.