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Thunderbird Club

#257,741
TBird1958 said:
I meant to sit down with that bass at the GTG and somehow it didn't happen, I wanted to compare it to mine....Which I really like, the TB Plus pickups sound very good with a set neck bass like this. I got mine from a fellow TBer for a ridiculously low price and honestly other than replacing the flats with some SIT Power Steels I haven't done a thing to it - It's a rock solid bass that goes completely unnoticed.

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That color!!!
 
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#257,745
MCF said:
*Disclaimer. The opinions expressed here are my own. They do not reflect those of other members of this club.

I finally got the new to me ‘05 Studio set up, cleaned and polished. It took freaking forever because the previous owner or owners had no clue.

This was a SF Bay Area Craigslist find that Dave noticed and offered to check out. My instructions were to buy it unless there was something obvious that couldn’t be corrected. It was a very good deal at $1K, with case. And with no tax or shipping charge.

I stared work on it on Friday. Removed completely dead rounds that were on it and tossed them. Cleaned and polished the frets, cleaned and oiled the fretboard and made sure frets were sound. They are. No high or loose frets. No noticeable wear. I can’t tell if they have ever been leveled or crowned. Fret end work is immaculate.
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Opened the control cavity. I have no clues if this is how it came from Gibson or if it had been modified. Any thoughts?
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I popped the TBird Plus pups. I assume this is how they came from Gibson. Does anyone know differently? Anyway, they sound AMAZING! Ken would love them.

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Restrung with Dunlop MM Stainless Steel Superbrights. I was going to use 50-105 SIT Power Steels that I ordered but couldn’t find. They came when I was at the GTG. My wife put them somewhere, but couldn’t remember where. Turned out to be a blessing in disguise. After installing them, it was obvious how dead the old strings were. I was a bit concerned there may have been a tone pot issue, put new strings put that concern to rest.

Then the “fun” began. Look at how the saddles were placed on the. Bridge. And they were set at weird heights. Whoever messed with it was an idiot. And I’m trying to be nice. And the neck was nowhere near straight, but the TR works perfectly so that issue was easily rectified.
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Notice that it’s a Badass II bridge. That is not what these basses came with. While the stock bridge was not a three point, it was a Gibson version of the 7ender 5 screw mount high mass style bridge. And this bass would have come with a chrome, not black, bridge. Putting the Badass on this Bird was a total fail. Whoever installed it on this Thunderbird is a complete moron. The Badass was originally designed for 7ender string through body applications. The holes in this bridge were not drilled wide enough for a common set of 45-105s with thick end windings at the ball ends to pass through easily. Again, what an idiot. The bass was “chorusy” before I started working on it. I’m not surprised given that the old strings were bound and twisted. Ugh.

So the obvious solution to me was to replace the stupid Badass bridge with a chrome Babicz 5 screw mount bridge. But wait. The idiot who installed it over tightened the screws. This thing won’t come off. And even if it did, the indentations made by the oversized Badass bridge would be visible.

So realizing that the bridge stays, I worked to file the old holes using the old strings. It was slow going. But I got enough paint and metal removed from the holes to make it work. It took about two hours to get this accomplished.

The bridge is a POS. I will never buy one. .050 hex key is required. Gibson multi-tool to the rescue for that fail. It took forever to get the height and intonation set. About two hours yesterday of back and forth adjustments and another half hour today.

At the end of the day, it’s a great Thunderbird. Beautiful in fact. And it sounds and now plays awesome. But man, it was a project getting it to fly right again.

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Well done Marshall! Looks brand new. And I’m sure it plays and sounds better. The control cavity looks like Gibby pots and some of the wiring looks original but some looks like it’s been messed with, not to mention the fried insulation on the yellow ground wire. The tone cap might be a replacement, check the value of it against a known stock unit. I’d have to double check, but I don’t recall Gibson using zip ties or slip wrap insulation over mesh pup leads. . I didn’t plug it in at the GTG but did notice the bridge looked off, good to see you’ve got it all sorted out now.
 
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#257,748
GBassNorth said:
Well done Marshall! Looks brand new. And I’m sure it plays and sounds better. The control cavity looks like Gibby pots and some of the wiring looks original but some looks like it’s been messed with, not to mention the fried insulation on the yellow ground wire. The tone cap might be a replacement, check the value of it against a known stock unit. I’d have to double check, but I don’t recall Gibson using zip ties or slip wrap insulation over mesh pup leads. I didn’t plug it in at the GTG but did notice the bridge looked off, good to see you’ve got it all sorted out now.
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Yeah. I was wondering about the control cavity. I’ve not seen ties or wrap before. I have TBird plus pickups in the ‘13 NR and the ‘11 short scale. I’ll see what caps are in those.

Which begs the question. Did that insulation get fried before or after someone was in there.
 
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#257,749
MCF said:
The stock bridge it came with was fine for that bass and should have never been changed. It played Ok at first blush. But it wasn’t intonated. And it couldn’t be because both the A and E strings were bound and twisted. The string height seemed ok at fist, but was way high on the 6th to 10th frets. I guess I’m just miffed because someone decided to make a great bass “better.” And didn’t.
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Well, at least they made it less expensive for you.
 
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#257,750
Ringhammer said:
I know both my ‘95 and ‘01 TB+ pickups had a vinyl “tube” around the braided shield of the pickup wires. No little tie wraps though.

I remember I posted about that bass when it was on local CL. Glad you got it and are happy with it.
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It took some time to get it there. If I billed myself my usual hourly rate, I couldn’t afford it.
 
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#257,752
JJR58 said:
My only caveat is that I might have to stay here till I’m 70.
That thought so gives me the shivers. :eek:
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I still need a publicist or book marketing guru. Once book sales hit a certain point, I would try to move to 30 hour weeks until sales were covering the gap in retirement funds. So at 67, not there yet.
 
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#257,753
MCF said:
Yeah. I was wondering about the control cavity. I’ve not seen ties or wrap before. I have TBird plus pickups in the ‘13 NR and the ‘11 short scale. I’ll see what caps are in those.

Which begs the question. Did that insulation get fried before or after someone was in there.
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It’s clearly a soldering iron touch-burn on the yellow ground wire, it happens but I wouldn’t think it would come from the factory that way, who knows. It’s kind of in the area of the output jack wire that looks like a resolder or the tone cap that might have been replaced.
 
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#257,756
Miles_ONeal said:
I still need a publicist or book marketing guru. Once book sales hit a certain point, I would try to move to 30 hour weeks until sales were covering the gap in retirement funds. So at 67, not there yet.
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Miles, I meant to ask you about that at the GTG. Your tag line says Author, very cool. So what types of books do you write?
 
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#257,757
Ringhammer said:
I have the Kappa 15a in an Orange OBC115 (which is the standard driver that Orange installs in that cab), and I have to say it is the best 1x15 cab I have ever heard. I like it so much I swapped the OEM driver in my PF115LF out for the KappaPro 15A just to see, and that 101db driver makes the PF50T a mighty loud and huge sounding amp at only 50w
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The 215 I have is an old Carvin box, maybe as much as 4.5 cu ft of internal volume, maybe. The Kappalites can take a box, for one speaker, as small as 1.8 cu ft. The cab is light for a 215, and being smallish it's very nice for club gigs. Not huge low end, but I've come to understand that's not only unnecessary, but if you have a house soundman that'll be a problem to solve (by dialing out as much of those lows as you can). So this little booger is pretty great. Sounded real nice until the amp went to bed...

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(Now it loads the image :bored:...)
 
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