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Thunderbird Club

#257,761
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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GBassNorth said:
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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Looks like maybe the output jack has been changed/replaced? Or is that the style for Gibson?
 
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#257,762
Stealth57 said:
Still in your TSC attire.
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Actually no - we dress "comfortable casual" for TSC's. Cherie requested monkey suits... (AKA - sweat-fest suits)

The sound relates to where the videographer shot it - favoring one amp over the whole. We had a pretty well balanced mix in general.
 
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#257,763
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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There is no "Love" button. Bummer...
 
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#257,764
TBird1958 said:
...It's a rock solid bass that goes completely unnoticed.

uQyWB6u.jpg
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Not anymore.
 
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#257,772
BklynKen said:
Just the aquarium, but in with the big sharks.

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Turns out there is a minimum number of dives necessary before volunteering at the Seattle Aquarium. There is a goal. If they are in Puget Sound, a significant number will be drysuit dives. It is ¥©®@$&!! cold water. Meaning less than 60f and often well under 50f.
 
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#257,773
Count Bassie said:
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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When playing the upright, I go DI from the pedalboard and just use the little Carvin rig for stage volume. It is pretty nice to have no feedback, sane stage volume, and an audience who jump and twitch when I do something. As bass players, we have all seen that. It is what we do. We get other people laid.
 
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#257,776
Gaolee said:
Turns out there is a minimum number of dives necessary before volunteering at the Seattle Aquarium. There is a goal. If they are in Puget Sound, a significant number will be drysuit dives. It is ¥©®@$&!! cold water. Meaning less than 60f and often well under 50f.
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Go for it. You'll be fine. I do those temps in a semi-dry. I've done 34° in Iceland in a drysuit.
 
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#257,778
GBassNorth said:
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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Years ago, software. More recently, a YA fantasy series (The Dragon Lord Chronicles), and a book of wild west short stories for kids. The stories in the latter were started for our pastor’s 8 y/o daughter when she was dying of cancer. I have started more books related to the DLC series, and also have ideas for sci fi books and a detective book.
 
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#257,779
BklynKen said:
Go for it. You'll be fine. I do those temps in a semi-dry. I've done 34° in Iceland in a drysuit.
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I am not concerned. I will be in a dry suit. Drysuit cert means six dives in October instead of five. Life could be worse.

Then six more in November in Puerto Morelos. In shorts. Life does not sick.
 
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