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Show us your FenderBirds/Exploders!!!

#21
They're N.O.S. 1976 'Bird covers and rings from an ebay dealer, I potted Seymour-Duncan 51P singlecoils into them pretty easy to do!
 
#22
DSC00206.jpg
 
#24
TBird1958 said:
Some of you have seen these before so just for the OP;
An Epi body and an inexpensive lefty J neck, it becomes a much easier project if you modify the heel of the neck rather than the pocket of the body - Good luck :)

Fenderbird005.jpg


NikkiBird003.gif


birds007.gif
Click to expand...

Looks absolutely fabulous(!!!!!!!!) - thanks for posting that.

I'd heard that about the heel/neck pocket thing.

Problem is getting a body. I've decided to be patient and wait for one to come up on Ebay (UK). I have the neck, tuners (will reverse them) & a nice Schaller bridge. I don't have a problem with pots & soldering - I actually have a 2-band 3 pot Artec pre in the drawer. So I need pups & a body.

Donations welcome!!!! :D
 
#26
GeoffByrne said:
By the way - how much needs trimmed off the heel to fit the TBird neck socket?
Click to expand...

That'll depend who's neck you end up using of course, I marked the fret locations with the original Epi neck first - most of the wood removed from the neck came from the end and bottom of the heel so the fret location would be in the same place. I made some simple templates from styrene of the shape of each side of the pocket (its asymetrical) and used them as a guide in removing some of the width of the neck so it would fit snug into the pocket.
I did all of the work with a moto-tool and small light files, it was a fun first project bass.
 
#27
Unless I can get hold of a wrecked Epiphone, I won't have a neck to measure from.

I just put together a FrankenJazz & the body (loaded) was set up for a 20 fret neck, so when I fitted my 19 fet neck, it wouldn't intonate. Out with the measuring tape & ended up moving the bridge about 1cm South - all now well. Could do the measuring thing with this. The bridge I have is a Schaller 3D 4, which sits low. The 3 point bridge looks like it sits high & I'm wondering if the Schaller is too low.
 
#28
TBird1958 said:
That'll depend who's neck you end up using of course, I marked the fret locations with the original Epi neck first - most of the wood removed from the neck came from the end and bottom of the heel so the fret location would be in the same place. I made some simple templates from styrene of the shape of each side of the pocket (its asymetrical) and used them as a guide in removing some of the width of the neck so it would fit snug into the pocket.
I did all of the work with a moto-tool and small light files, it was a fun first project bass.
Click to expand...
I really love how your Fenderbird looks! Is it as easy as you say or was it time consuming? Would I be able to do this with no experience in wood working or would I be over my head? I have a Epi Thunderbird and wouldn`t mind making some mods to it and making it my own(putting in a Hipshot bridge and and maybe new pickups in it). Any advice would be super great!
 
#36
OK. Here's the good news:

I found a luthier starting out & wanting to do a few example jobs and offered to make an Explorer body for $100 including labour.

The bad news:

The guy who was going to give me the neck has had all his stock confiscated by the police - I hasten to add that the guy bought this stuff in good faith and is co-operating fully with the police(!!!).

So. End of project (at the moment). :crying:
 

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