This is for sale on my local CL. Does anyone have any idea what's happening around the bridge?
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What's up with this Ric?
- Thread starter STROMERO
- Start date
Amateurs and power tools, an often fatal mix.
Hack job.
Real shame especially when you consider Hipshot makes a replacement bridge that involves no irreversible mods.
Offer dree fiddy
I'd hazard a guess that the original bridge suffered a catastrophic "tail lift" incident, and ripped up a bunch of wood. Then an amateur spliced in a new block of wood to attach the new bridge.
It's a functional repair, but it ain't pretty.
It's a functional repair, but it ain't pretty.
Almost looks like that's a hunk of brass, not wood 
Pretty funky...
Pretty funky...
I can fix it,, my brothers got this awesome set of tools.
I feel bad for this bass. Living in the trunk of a van, seemingly surrounded by garbage. It's begging you for a new home!
Credit where credit is due, though - at least there are no nasty, bare feet in this photo.
Credit where credit is due, though - at least there are no nasty, bare feet in this photo.
^This^. And, I have to agree; assuming the bass plays OK, and you can get a tool on the truss rod nuts? If you can live with how it looks -and you can get it for a price that's commensurate with that... "modification" (low, that is), then I'd say - go for it...
By the way; tail lift doesn't result in "ripping a bunch of wood". Tail lift is the tailpiece bending in it's weakest spot, precisely because there are no screws in the back (like there used to be - before too many people complained that they looked "ugly") to hold it down. Both my '73 4001 and my '01 4003 have a little tail lift - just enough to get a credit card under the back edge. And, no matter how hard I look at the 2 of them? No ripped wood...
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If you can get it cheap enough, then maybe consider filling/sanding that nasty area and doing a refinish. Of course, put a more Ric-appropriate bridge on it afterward.
Yeah that's pretty high considering what's happened to that thing. Maybe $1000, but even that feels a bit high still. If the bones of that bass are solid, it's a reasonable counter offer, but based on the silliness in the used market ATM, I expect the seller won't budge...
They do NOW, but they probaby didn't in the Early 80's or whenever this mod was done.
The original Quan BadAss bridge was usually too tall to be a stock replacement, so it had to be countersunk into the body. (Hence the Badass II's design). But even that's no excuse for the overkill of this situation.
I bet $5 there was even a Kahler bass tremolo on this bass at one point.
I may be wrong but I think the Hipshot replacement bridge was first offered in 2019?
Probably still after this abomination was done though.
I don't even want to think about what's in the cooler.
I was trying to think of a situation that would require someone to drill a lock onto their cooler and couldn't come up with many. Maybe they got sick of their buddies raiding their beer stash without asking?
There are Rics in pretty good condition in the 2000 dollar range on Reverb , no way I'd give 1500 for this thing.
