G&L Tribby L-2500 Fretless Conversion

We recently undertook a pretty cool project here at Rocket Music. My biz partner Danny is the in-house repair tech, and he did all of this work.

A friend of ours in Norway wanted a fretless L-2500, but he wanted to pay closer to the Tribute price... so for a nominal fee, we agreed to modify this lovely Tribby L-2500 that we had in stock.

Here's the bass in it's original condition (fretted and tuned B-E-A-D-G):


Then Danny went to work on it, pulling out the frets:


Then Danny filled the fret slots, re-levelled the fretboard, and started applying coats of spar urethane.



After the fretboard finish cured, Danny levelled and polished it so it's a lovely high gloss now. The last thing he did was cut a new bone note so that the bass is now tuned E-A-D-G-C.

So here's the BEFORE


And here's the AFTER:


Now that we know just how much work is involved in a project like this, we would charge a bit more. If anyone is interested in having this done to a bass or guitar, we'll charge $250 for the labor. And if you're not local, you'd also have to pay shipping both ways.

But I dare say it's worth it. I've been setting the bass up this morning, and I just can't put it down. Sounds great, plays great, looks great... I'll be sad to see it go, but go it must today.

Hah, I didn't even have a chance to PM you about it

We've got to polish the body a bit, but I hope we're able to ship it off to you today. Worst case, it will ship tomorrow.

It's a little confusing to play at first, but I found that I was able to dial in my intonation after about 30 minutes of playing it.

I guess it is winter down your way, eh? Balmy and 85 here

Yes, indeed!