NBD / New Project 70s Ripper Refinish

I've always wondered, how heavy are these? Nice find! Shame it has the water damage, but it will still look and sound great once it's fixed up.

 

Really cool. They always looked heavy to me too. I know you'll keep us updated with the restoration and I really look forward to seeing it!

 

Sounds like you have an early one. Some Later Rippers where boat anchors.

 

Gonna be a beauty.

 

Definitely an early one based on the body contours and string ferrules alone. The 5xxxxxx serial number is also correct for Gibsons manufactured in 1974-75. It should have “Made in U.S.A.” stamped underneath it on the back of the headstock.

The early ones (73-74) were alder bodied and quite light. The later ones (75-79) were maple and considerably heavier.

The early models also had a thinner neck. The later ones shifted over to a thicker more Les Paul neck profile.

 

Long time Ripper owner/player here. Bought my first back in 1974. Still have it. Still play it. Congratulations on finding a Ripper!

Any plans yet on the refin?

Couple of thoughts:

Changing the bridge won’t affect the sound on a Ripper. So IMO unless your bridge is damaged I’d leave it as is and not waste the money.

However, if you change the pickups it will definitely change the sound. The pickups in the Ripper were designed by Bill Lawrence along with the wiring and tonestack. They’re unique to the Ripper and there's nothing else out there quite like them. If you change out any of the electronics you’ll have have a bass that looks like a Ripper. But it will no longer sound like one. Don’t know if you care, but I thought I‘d mention that in case you did.

If you do decide to replace the original electronics could you PM me? I might be interested if they’re in working order and haven't been modified.

Note: Seymour Duncan’s Custom Shop now offers a period correct reproduction if you need to replace a damaged Ripper pup.

 

Congratulations! I’d love to have such a project right now. My first non-Sear’s catalog Bass was a Ripper. Not all that cool in the era of reverse hockey stick necks, but 30 years later, I really wish I had kept it.

 

I bought one of these new in its day, the late 70's. To my notion, the best bass Gibson ever made, for several reasons:

-The BL-design pickup and control system actually worked, and produced a sound that sounded just like an 'electric bass guitar', as it had a real 34" scale and did NOT have the appropriately-named MUDbucker slammed up to the end of the fingerboard on a short scale. Just like a real bass, hoooo-eeeee !

-NOT neck-heavy; TBirds look cooler than hell, but can be tricky to find one that will balance.

-NOT too heavy, unlike the RD's or the Victory's that followed it.

I too would recommend, Seymour's Custom Shop replacements IF the originals have gone to magnetic heaven.

I liked mine (it was my first electric bass geetar), but didn't love it; I then bought an RD Artist to go with the Rip, and then decided I'd had it with those two and moved on. Still, to me the best bass Gibson ever built.

The RDA was everything the Ripper wasn't: TOO heavy (heaviest axe I ever owned by a mile), unwieldy (long as an Alembic with none of the grace), and the Moog-designed pickups and tone network were fussy to live with, one of those basses with easy to find so-so tone, hard to find that really primo spot, and as one of the first active setups, they could be noisy. Plus, TRY and find someone to fix the electronics today. Oh, yeah, did I mention they're heavy?

To me, as Gibson re-issues or riffs on so many of their classics, I would market a re-issue of this with Seymour doing the pickups and the roto-switch electronics, skip the 3-point and mount the Hipshot and primo keys, and I think they'd easily sell a lot of them. As I said, this is easily to me the best bass Gibson ever made, and a smartly evolved yet authentic reissue could serve them well.

 

They already tried that back in 2009. It was called the Ripper II. It had two SeymourDuncan humbuckers and a six position pickup selector/coil splitter switch. In short, a brand new fairly standard “me too” bass that happened to look like a Ripper. With a premium price tag and planned limited availability to put some frosting on the cake the outcome was inevitable.

It totally bombed.

Won them no new fans and alienated the Ripper community who were hoping for an accurate reissue.

So it goes.

 

Nice! It would look great if it was refinished in the same purple as the case interior.

 

A friend of mine in Cincinnati used to play a black Ripper fretless, one of the best basses I've ever heard.

 

Some of the unicorn rare cherryburst ones were pretty cool looking. They were never officially issued. But current consensus seems to indicate that maybe a half to a full dozen or so were actually made for trade shows when the bass made its debut.

I don’t get the hate they get. They do the job and are already radiused correctly for the neck. Setting action height is easy and they hold their settings. But if you don’t like them then I guess you don’t like them. And yours does sound like it needs to be replaced. So whatever.

Makes sense. And who knows? You may choose to reinstall it all someday and find you like it …assuming they’re not suffering damage from the same environmental conditions that messed with the body.

Addenda: Pickguards.com is doing standard and custom Ripper pickguards if you’re interested. Link here.

 

I’d keep that sucker exactly as stock as possible those things have drastically increased in price recently and their original kit was pretty great. .
Looks good to me, unless that is a split in the wood then I could see regluing it and a partial refin to make it stable if necessary.

 

Never had that problem. But if a Hipshot does it better for you then I have no problems with that either. Hipshot makes a fine product.

Keep us posted as your project commences. We all love a good project around here. Especially a different one like yours.