Thunderbird Club

[MCF]

All I remember about rum was Bacardi's (white) and that it tasted like rubbing alcohol from Walmart and could/should have been sold in the Rx.

4 to 5 ounces of 151 in a large fountain Coke pretty much did the job back in high school. Fun fact. One of the girls we hung around with broke a bottle of 151 on the It’s a Small World ride on Grad Night. We sure got the stink eye from the ride attendant who helped us out of the boat at the end of the ride. It’s amazing he didn’t have us ejected.

 

[MCF]

Funny thing about getting the "best" sound. What does that mean? I don't know. I don't even know what I like from day to day. There's always some tweak I feel like doing to make things sound better that day, even if everything else is the same. I did the Precision with dead flats thing for a while and thought it sounded perfect. Now I don't like that sound near as much and go for more of a scooped sound with a bit of zing to it. In another year or two, who knows what will sound good to my damaged ears.

As you point out, trying to decide how to compare the sound of one bass vs another bass is next to impossible. When doing that, the fairest way is to use the same strings, same settings, etc. But, that may favor one over another because one set of pickups and pickup locations sounds great that way, and then the other one needs to have a completely different set of strings and settings. Not that we don't try. Trying means playing bass, which isn't a bad thing to have to do.

Some days I like the VP. Other days I don’t. I have decided to move it to the other house and run it through the Mesas. All I’ve played through mostly is the SVT.

 

[MCF]

Not sure if this has been posted but GC has a '[Invalid or Expired Link Removed] in their used section.

That has Dave’s name on it.

 

[MCF]

Someone's gotta try and convince them that it's a beat-up Epiphone 64 Thunderbird and get it for $500.

Yeah. It’s in Lincoln of all places. I will tell you though, it would be closer to 15K were it at the Sunset store. Those guys don’t let anything get away reasonably.

 

[MCF]

View attachment 7157418

Jeez. PT Barnum sells basses?

 

[Stealth57]

That has Dave’s name on it.

I'd go for the one that has the neck repair since it has all the covers and mute.

 

[Chucky Stiletti]

I’ll get one some day. Just not high on the list of wants near term.

actively looking for a second one, preferably a II....

 

[MCF]

I took that BA II bridge off the NR. Just looked wrong and it had to go. Notice the claw is slightly to the bass side and will need to be reset. Only an issue with the G and D. May need to be angled just a bit. Never ran into that before, but have seen weird things like that. The strings still go in the groves fine. Seems like the gold two piece makes for a little darker tone. Not a bad thing. May have thickened it up a bit. Had to eyeball the intonation then tighten it down in place. Once the height was set there would be no easy way to adjust it. For once I made a fantastic guess and got all four correct. I was shocked.

I really struggled with the BA II someone installed on my Studio. It took hours to intonate and get the string height right. But that said, I haven’t touched it in over a year. And the Bird sounds awesome.

 

[Chucky Stiletti]

I really struggled with the BA II someone installed on my Studio. It took hours to intonate and get the string height right. But that said, I haven’t touched it in over a year. And the Bird sounds awesome.

I've always really liked them, a great improvement on the first Leo Quan iteration....one came stock on my Gretsch (still on there) in 79 and thinking of installing another one (@JJR58 graciously gifted me) on my 70J.....all this said, I'm totally with Donnie in that a second gen bird is not a place for one....

 

[TBird1958]

more like rounders...
View attachment 7157422

Well, if it involves wearing a dress, it's possibly a game/sport I could be interested in.

 

[BuddhaFingas]

Hey, I took some measurements of my Reverse Tbirds’s wings:
1991 Orville: 33-26mm
2017 VP: 34-30mm
My built from scratch: 32-30mm (I’m going to go to 26mm)
2014ish Epi IV 31.5-31.5mm
View attachment 7157379

Thank you very kindly!

So the taper from the "neck" out to the "edge" is only a few millimeters - 7mm at the most extreme. That's interesting... I was of the impression that it was a lot more pronounced.

I really appreciate the info.

 

[Engle]

Thank you very kindly!

So the taper from the "neck" out to the "edge" is only a few millimeters - 7mm at the most extreme. That's interesting... I was of the impression that it was a lot more pronounced.

I really appreciate the info.

Check out the Dingwall Dbird

 

[TBird1958]

4 to 5 ounces of 151 in a large fountain Coke pretty much did the job back in high school. Fun fact. One of the girls we hung around with broke a bottle of 151 on the It’s a Small World ride on Grad Night. We sure got the stink eye from the ride attendant who helped us out of the boat at the end of the ride. It’s amazing he didn’t have us ejected.

Senior year of high school we used to leave about noon during the Winter grab our stuff and go skiing at Stevens or Snoqualmie Pass, a Bota bag of 151 was required to keep warm riding the chair lift - There are times that I really miss those days!

 

[Stealth57]

Senior year of high school we used to leave about noon during the Winter grab our stuff and go skiing at Stevens or Snoqualmie Pass, a Bota bag of 151 was required to keep warm riding the chair lift - There are times that I really miss those days!

We were Wild Turkey 101. Light weights

 

[TBird1958]

As Alembics go, yeah, I like this one....
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[Gaolee]

II time on a Thursday.

Perfect Thunderbird Thursday.

 

[Gaolee]

more like rounders...
View attachment 7157422

Rounders is why baseball made sense to my English wife.

 

[Engle]

If I recorded and posted this correctly here’s a few minute recording made up of ten Tbirds back to back…
View attachment 7156188
It was a quick and dirty single take direct from the bass to an interface and into the iPad, no tone shaping other than the onboard controls on each bass, which were all set to neck volume of 9, bridge volume of 7 and tone setting of 5. Each bass was played finger style directly over the neck pickup. I tried to come up with a quick tune that would highlight each string and octaves as well. Please pardon the cruddy playing, it’s just here to give a good idea how each of the pickups in these basses compare.

Here’s the order they were recorded in:
1) (0:00 min) Eppi Purple Sparkle ‘64 - new 760ProBucker pickups, stock strings
2) (0:23 min) 2017 Eppi VP - old 760ProBucker pickups, Fender 7250 round nickels
3) (0:50 min) North ‘66 NR Tribute - old 760ProBuckers in vintage locations, Fender 7250 rounds, Wenge neck
4) (1:18 min) BaCH NR - ChinaBuckers, Fender 7250 rounds, ultra low action so there’s a bit more fret noise
5) (1:42 min) 2022 Gibby NR - stock pickups, Fender 7250 rounds
6) (2:05 min) North ThunderCaster - Fender wide range humbuckers in extreme positions (at the heel and at the bridge)
7) (2:30 min) Lull Tom Petersson Tbird - Lull pickups both at the heel and neck positions, Optima Gold round wound strings
8) (2:52 min) North BlingBird - ChinaBuckers in three positions, heel, mid and bridge, Optima Gold round wound strings
9) (3:16 min) Hot rodded Goth (cap job) - stock goth Eppi pups, EBCF strings
10) (3:40 min) FrankenGoth - Bart pups, Aggie preamp, coil switch set on single coil, treb flat, bass boosted, LaBella Black tapes

That's a cool listen. Thanks for doing that George!
I like them all, but the Thundercaster didn't have a lot of definition. What strings are on it?

 

[RedVee]

This is a small batch distillery that only uses Hawaiian crystal sugar, no molasses. Very smooth. They also do a series of flavored rums all using Hawaii-only ingredients. Coffee, chocolate, coconut, mango, etc. Their cinnamon rum tastes like a Hot Tamale candy. Puts Fireball to shame.

When I get to Mauritius I plan to visit a rum distillery. The main Mauritian crop was sugar, and in fact supplied most of the sugar into the Colony of NSW until the industry got going here. Now some of them have been repurposed into Rum distilleries.

Anyway I want to go to Mauritius and have a look around. Visit a few places, including a tour of the Manioc Biscuit factory which doesn’t seem to have updated machines since WW1 (or before?). I don’t know Manioc but they grow Cassava on site and use the flour for the biscuits. Worth a try. Of further interest to me is they fly the Breton flag as well as the Mauritian flag.


(For those that don’t know much like the Caribbean, the European powers settled the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean and planted sugar on much of the islands. Then of course they “imported” the people to work the plantations).

There is a French Film Festival in March and one film is “No Chains, No Masters” which has a main character based on an ancestor of mine. Unfortunately in an unsympathetic role. She was a complicated person in a complicated time - it’s set in 1759 Mauritius. I’m arranging for a ticket.

 

[Miles_ONeal]

One of them must have woke up first. That must be where that pic of you laying naked in a front yard came from that has been floating around the interwebs. Looked like a restful sleep in the Box Woods.

Nah. There were no front yards in drunken stagger distance of this dorm. But there may have been many chances for such a pic in my hippie daze.