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Thunderbird Club
- Thread starter TBird1958
- Start date
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- Tags
- club thunderbird
More beautiful things in small packages showed up yesterday, our own @godofthunder59 has provided a new, proper pickgard, tug bar, bridge cover and tailpiece for my BaCH. I'm refitting the original tuners, which required drilling a couple of screws that the first owner had broken off when the aftermarket tuners were installed. The holes have all been doweled, will do the same to mount the new tailpiece along with a height shim for the pickup.
Sweeeeeet!!!!!
The Thunderbird Lounge (basement music room) is finally getting there. Water damage repairs (from previous owner) are completed after dealing with their flaky insurance company and even flakier restoration company. I got it ready for carpet installation of the entire floor and the stairs going down to it from the house tomorrow!
It will be a nice room. Maybe not as nice as Irv’s or George’s, but there will room for lots of basses and amps, a keyboard, and maybe a drum set. These are the last before pics. The last two are showing it empty after I broke my back moving the rest of the stuff out yesterday.
I need to replace outlet and light switch plates, touch up some paint and it’ll be ready to install a bass wall hanger system that will run the length of the inside wall. It’s technically a basement with an eight foot ceiling and is not counted as part of the square footage of the house. The door opens to the outside.
I’m getting excited!
It will be a nice room. Maybe not as nice as Irv’s or George’s, but there will room for lots of basses and amps, a keyboard, and maybe a drum set. These are the last before pics. The last two are showing it empty after I broke my back moving the rest of the stuff out yesterday.
I need to replace outlet and light switch plates, touch up some paint and it’ll be ready to install a bass wall hanger system that will run the length of the inside wall. It’s technically a basement with an eight foot ceiling and is not counted as part of the square footage of the house. The door opens to the outside.
I’m getting excited!
Attachments
That seems to be the magic number.
Yep! And the chrome surround, installed per your suggestion, turned out great. Unfortunately, I will not have a new pickup in it yet. It’s a great Thunderbird. And I kind of like the claw that it has. I’m not going to replace it.
beautiful V, congrats! hate to say it but I so much prefer the ergos of NRs….played my Greco reverse at a gig yesterday and it always takes me a few bars to get used to the raised center in combination with 3 point…maybe not as noticeable on reverses with 2 piece (60’s) bridges…More beautiful things in small packages showed up yesterday, our own @godofthunder59 has provided a new, proper pickgard, tug bar, bridge cover and tailpiece for my BaCH. I'm refitting the original tuners, which required drilling a couple of screws that the first owner had broken off when the aftermarket tuners were installed. The holes have all been doweled, will do the same to mount the new tailpiece along with a height shim for the pickup.
- Mar 13, 2008
- 18,897
- 142,237
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist Mike Lull T Bass pickups, The Bass Shop, Seattle WA.
Just put it away until I get there, it needs love - I'll take it into a corner and speak nicely to it ( and put a set of Ken Smith's on it)
Get a Babicz for it.
Coming along nicely!
Do yourself a favor, invest in a humidity control system for that area and maybe a smart device connection to your phone so you can monitor the humidity and temps while you’re not at the house. I had that in my last house and it was a life saver! My guitar room was in a finished basement (much bigger and nicer than my current setup), HEPA filtered, heated/cooled, and humidity controlled. Even though that house was in the Midwest with wild temp and humidity swings it never fluctuated more than a couple of degrees and a few % RH. I did have a water line on the first floor spring a small leak and fortunately I caught it early when a floor mounted moisture sensor sent an alarm to my phone. Well worth the money and piece of mind.
was thinking a hipshot or something… problem is I don’t know if I can use the claw….not a big deal, I can deal with it, it’s just noticeable….
- Mar 13, 2008
- 18,897
- 142,237
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist Mike Lull T Bass pickups, The Bass Shop, Seattle WA.
Mine has a Bad Bird 3 Point replacement on it, don't know if they're still available tho.
Sounds to me like you need a reversed Greco. There is such a thing, kinda butt ugly and relatively rare but it does exist.
…never mind, I just noticed it has a raised center also.
I’ve said forever, there’s nothing special about a Greco neck, body or hardware, the magic is all in the pickups and their locations. You could just move those wonderful Greco pickups into one of your NR birds and have the best of both worlds. It’s completely reversible if you decide to sell at a later date.
And nothing like a hardcore punk Sunday at the pier.
One of these would make a pretty easy left-hand conversion. Mostly because the paint should be an easy match.
- Mar 13, 2008
- 18,897
- 142,237
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist Mike Lull T Bass pickups, The Bass Shop, Seattle WA.
If you like the feel of a Jazz neck you can buy a nice one relatively cheap on eBay and put it on a very inexpensive unfinished NR body from eBay along with some pickups from a VP and you’ll have the foundation for a very nice NR. It’s what I’m doing. I had hoped to keep my total build cost at around $800 but I’ll most likely be a hair over that. The cost of finishing has unfortunately gone through the roof. Finishers that were charging $300 for a body a couple of years ago are now charging as much as $600 for the same job.
There’s an outside chance my NR will be complete in time for the GTG but most likely not, the weather has been so cold and damp down here it’s delayed the finishing by a couple of months. We just got into the 70’s a couple of days ago for the first time this year.
It was on eBay forever. Might even still be there, and dirt cheap IIRC.
It’ll have to be a full on Gibson.
I like the way you think!
