balancing out a thunderbird

[Shafty Magee]

anyone know a good way to add weight to a epiphone thunderbird? trying to make it a little more bottom heavy so the neck doesn't dive bomb on me when i let go of it

 

[Admiral Axtell]

What i did was drill a hole in the back of the body on the space where the neck meets the body and moved the strap thing there and it had no neck issues after that

 

[Sid Fang]

I've had the same problem, in spades, with my '67 Epiphone Embassy, which is essentially a Thunderbird with a smaller (Wiltshire) body. I'd suggest finding a small leather pouch the same color as your strap, filling it with lead shot (which is somewhat fluid and less likely to damage things it bumps into), and hanging that off the lower strap button, between your strap and the butt of the bass.

I don't know if they still make them, but there used to be straps with a bit of a contour to them that would sort-of hug your shoulder and prevent neck diving. One of those was marginally successful with my Embassy, and might be entirely satisfactory for the less-unbalanced Thunderbird.

 

[TBird1958]

Put it here........
A good strap will help a lot too.

 

[slaps76]

The strap being on the top of the body must be awful...mine is on the back by the bottom of the neck(it's a Pro made this year) that's supposed to fix the neck dive, but I don't know what people are talking about, mine still has neck dive. Guess it's a big improvement though!

 

[jasper383]

Axe Balancer

This is a great idea. It's a little expensive; I imagine one could be made at home pretty easily.

 

[stiles72]

Here's where I put the strap locks on all of my Birds (Gibson & Epi). Moving both of them to these positions makes the bass rest in a very level to upright position, so I can let go of the neck and it doesn't move at all.

 

[Longhair]

Axe Balancer

This is a great idea. It's a little expensive; I imagine one could be made at home pretty easily.

$45

Why didn't I think of that