flaviusm Posted March 14, 2020 Share Posted March 14, 2020 Hello you, it’s me again! This time with a little repair/upgrade on a Ricky 4003s/5. This is a great bass, but I wanted to make it an amazing bass for me. I play with a low/very low action. Because of that, to setup the intonation the bridge saddles must be closer to the neck. But the “calculation” of the Rickenbacker factory was not very good this time, the screws for the intonation becoming too short. For a medium and high intonation I’m sure the screws are long enough. So, I moved the bridge 10 mm to the neck because I didn’t found longer screws on stores, even Schaller factory has only 24 and 28 mm M 3,5 screws. Yep, unfortunately I made 3 new holes, but the bass will remain forever mine, so it must be not very “marketable”. The second modification that I made was to put a new pickguard with a new shape, to have a pseudo-thumbrest. Even the design was made in such a way to have a parallelism with that oblique pickup edge 🤓. I need to play there (and to rest my thumb for the B string) to have the tone that I want. So, this problem was solved too. In the case the bass looks better with a white pickguard, but on stage it’s too much contrast for me. Yeah, I know, I’m too fastidious (it’s the proper word? ). Now pictures... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted March 14, 2020 Share Posted March 14, 2020 Well that's certainly distinctive, and yes - 'fastidious' is exactly the right word. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6feet7 Posted March 14, 2020 Share Posted March 14, 2020 (edited) I've just put a black pickguard and truss rod cover on my 4003SW-5 to match the black pickups and controls. The white was too much of a contrast. Edited March 17, 2020 by 6feet7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
groovinglen Posted October 17 Share Posted October 17 Do you have a template for the pickguard? I'm struggling to find one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted October 17 Share Posted October 17 Can't you use the existing white p/g as the template? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flaviusm Posted October 18 Author Share Posted October 18 I used the white pickguard as a (partial) template, the rest was in my mind (free drawing) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6feet7 Posted October 18 Share Posted October 18 16 hours ago, groovinglen said: Do you have a template for the pickguard? I'm struggling to find one Sorry no. I sold mine and now have a 4004L converted to a 5 stringer but it doesn’t have a pick guard and I’ve a triangular rickenbacker 5 string pickup in my explorer / Thunderbird homemade hybrid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.