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Thunderbird Club
- Thread starter TBird1958
- Start date
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- club thunderbird
hillerup
There are basses, and there are Thunderbirds!
Tell us some more about this one, if you would?
I have a couple of late 70s RDs (a Standard and an Artist) and would love to hear it's story.
Been a proud 'bird owner since yesterday. Side-by-side with a Cort B4 this bass looks like (and feels like) heavy artillery compared to a rifle
Bought it new in a store as "b-stock" for $480
Man, I love the look of the natural oil finish Pro-IV & V! Made it really hard for me to decide between the Pro-IV and the Classic IV Pro that I ended up taking home (I preferred the tone of the Classic IV).
I know what you mean about 'heavy artillery'. When I pick up my Jazz bass after playing the T-bird, the Jazz feels like a toy. Kinda like swinging two bats on deck before stepping up to the plate.
BTW, that Cort looks nice too!
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
I played my Blackbird at a reggae gig Saturday night, and yep that's a pretty hefty bass alright. I traded off amother bass today, that I knew I wouldn't be using, for a Schecter Omen Extreme 4, and in comparison to the 'Bird, the Schecter feels like a paper airplane!
While I do love my Epiphone, they seem to have been irritatingly inconsistent with their screw hole locations for their pickguards.
I've been trying to match my pickguard to one of the templates on here: Link Removed
It matches exactly none of them.
Argghh.
I've been trying to match my pickguard to one of the templates on here: Link Removed
It matches exactly none of them.
Argghh.
Have you asked Larry V? He might have the template you need.
Lollars in black chrome. I got them because, based on sound samples available at the time (2 years ago), they seemed like the best copy of the Non-reverse thunderbird sound. I couldn't be happier. the black chrome looks great on my Jaguar:
*the pickup rings and spacer under the bridge ring, I actually bought from thunderbucker ranch ; )
Please, for the love of Zeus, tell me you call that a "Thundercat".
RD is for Research and Development (Read, Gibson's experimental stuff). I am inclined to believe that they changed the whole neck, that could have been an explorer one, although it is not spot on. As it was on sale on the Bay I read that it had a couple of problems, so I did not take the risk. But it is a nice RD nonetheless!
How would that help, though? It's Ertmer who needs to know what screw hole pattern my bass has, since she's the one making the custom pickguard.
She said if mine doesn't match any of the existing templates just to scan the PG and send the scan to her. Which I'd have to do for the TRC anyway.
I don't know.. Maybe he has templates in digital form, or could scan a template and send you the file. You would have to ask Larry. It was just a suggestion.
Yeah, maybe that might actually work. Sorry, I'm incredibly tired and probably should go to bed. I couldn't make the connection in terms of the process, like what the step between would be. If that makes sense. It probably doesn't, lol.
Yeah, I refer to it as The Thundercat!
I want an Epi JC at some stage. It was seeing them at a shop about 18 months ago that got me all fired up to try to learn how to play.
I havent checked the year yet (probably should look up the serial nr.) but based on the patina on the frets it's definitely a couple of years old. I tried out the bass a couple of times in the shops and its not perfect by any means. There is a little buzz at the nut of the E string and the electronics are pretty much haywire. I was very well aware of these but they are nothing a good luthier cant solve. Fortunately luthiers in my country are comparatively cheaper, so I expect to throw in around 70-80 bucks more to make it gig-ready. I have planned these in and its still worth it imo. Especially that 5-string 'birds are very hard to find around here and Epiphone doesn't make them anymore.
The Cort is a great bass, biggest bang for the buck IMO, and they look classy
Also in the shop I tried out a Squier VM Jazz Bass, feel-wise it was on par with the $1000+ basses in the shop, for a mere $400, too bad I was looking for a 5-string
hillerup
There are basses, and there are Thunderbirds!
Basically all Epi pickguards differ in sizes and screwholes, in regards to their year of manufacture, place of manufacture - and even still...
Out of my 13 Epi Thunderbirds the Pro and the Classic Pro are the only ones that comes even close in size and screw holes to each other.
Several of Larry's templates comes from me anyway, as it seems I have the largest variety of Epi birds around here.
My best advice is to make a template yourself, scan it and mail it to Ertmer Music - But be aware that if you're in the US there may be some scaling issues when Ertmer Music prints out the template, since Europeans don't use "letter size", but "A4" instead when printing. I therefore suggest you write down some measurements of the pickguard itself and the distance between screwholes.
Indeed, thanks for the advice.
Seems kinda weird for them to change the screw hole pattern so much. Why not just make all the pickguards exactly the same except for graphic/color (black for the Pro, Goth, and Blackbird, obviously) and put them on all the basses? Seems needlessly complicated.
But yeah, the aesthetics have been somewhat worked out. Getting the screw holes to line up is the difficult part.
I did take down measurements of the distances between screw holes, which was how I determined that the pickguard on my bass doesn't match any of the eight (eight!!!) different templates she has on her site. I made sure to double check them and write them down (may as well keep record now instead of having to measure all over again).
