Making Lemonade

you know...with those lemons life handed me.

So, with some in-depth discussions, and plan B-ing with my shop equipment mentor, Jeff Soucek, it was decided I would purchase this little sideways blade doohickey for the milling machine. A thin round blade that could cut a near perfect straight line right through the body - right through the glueline that holds the misaligned pieces together. I just need to clamp the body into the mill's vice, line it up perfectly, and cut the bass back into 3 pieces. easy-sqeezy-japaneasy.

I'll be losing about a 1/16" all the way around, but that's within my tolerences. I mean, what choice have I got? When these Rics were made in the 60's, there were no CNC machines cutting the pieces to cloned perfection, it was all templates and hand cutting. If you look at as many pictures of old 4001 basses, like I have, you'll notice a lot of variences (is that the right word and/or spelling?). Body profiles changed quite drastically around the control cavities and horns, Headstocks are very obviously shaped by hand, and pickguards are all over the map. All this makes me feel better about what I'm about to do.

That, and the fact that this is not an EXACT replica. The Sethenbacker has a few extra frets and the accompanying longer fretboard. There's nothing I can do about that I have decided, and that's cool with me. The Sethenbacker is also a 34" scale bass, the industry standard more or less, a standard set back in 1950 or '51 by Leo Fender, remarkably that still stands today. Later that same decade, Rickenbacker would shave a half inch off of that scale length (or is it a quarter?) for some reason. not a remarkable change, or discernable difference I guess, but I digresss....

Let's cut some stuff.

Scary.

After the chop chop, I shaved off a thousandth or two to get all of the edges perfectly flat

and perpendicular.

After a night back in the clamps, it's time to start removing some maple.

I spent a lot of time referring to my measurements of Dan's '71 4001, and consulting my vast library of 4001 photos scoured from the "internet" while penciling in all of the routes. You'll notice I have depth measurements penciled in as well.

Starting the control cavity.

....and there you go.

I think I'll spend some time cleaning up the control cavity with the dremel tool. The pickguard is going to be a little weird with that fretboard extending so far back to the neck pickup route, but I'm getting used to it. so far, even with my little hickup - 100% kick ass.