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Thunderbird Club

blew me away how unsafe this mill was (scandy safety standards are among the most stringent but may not apply to mills) mind you, this was 20 years ago….Osha would have had a field day… blades flying around uncovered (no safety curtains) slicing 10 foot diameter paper rolls…massive completely exposed pulp screws on the ground…..no forklift lanes….gnarly stuff….
Don't forget the tanks of chlorine gas for bleaching white paper and just a small number of oxygen masks hung on the walls. Also, leaking fluid from the digester the would melt rubber soled shoes...
 
Thank you. '62 w/slab board. Body appropriately refinished (thus it was affordable). The neck is untouched and has grain pattern of a special order bass today. The finish is mostly gone off the back of the neck and feels great. I love the feel of wood with no finish.
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Yah, you'll see examples of birds-eye and flamed maple on those vintage Fenders. Hard to say if they were special order or just the next piece of maple.
 
wish I would have known about that effort, would have gotten an early (thinner and factory belly cut) white II like the one Andy’s ( @Nocturnal ) buddy beautifully turned into a PB IV….as much as I dig reverses (bought my first brand new 70’s in 82) i’ve always been infatuated with NRs…It’s sooo cool BaCH manufactured something (albeit, with guidance from the TB elite) that with the right aftermarket running gear (Badbird bridges, PGs, rests/Thunderbuckers) can turn into one badazz NR Bird without any help from Gibson…
mine’s not going anywhere….
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You don't take it to gigs?:smug:
 
blew me away how unsafe this mill was (scandy safety standards are among the most stringent but may not apply to mills) mind you, this was 20 years ago….Osha would have had a field day… blades flying around uncovered (no safety curtains) slicing 10 foot diameter paper rolls…massive completely exposed pulp screws on the ground…..no forklift lanes….gnarly stuff….
I did some sketchy stuff installing com cabling in various industrial spaces 20-30 years ago. Safety standards are much higher now.
 
I bought my '52 International from a guy who lived on a farm in Nebraska. It had no turn-signals - it was a farm truck. I bought a strap-on steering-wheel column unit from JC Whitney (I'll be surprised if anyone knows of them) and mounted lights similar to the ones in the pic I posted. Wiring it was a bear, but I finally did it. It drove like ... a truck! and in 1st gear you could basically climb a wall.

Ahem! (bought a what!)

I had lots of JC Whitney catalogs for my old vans and for my motorcycles.
 
and the whiplash insurance settlement...

Thereby illustrating one of the engineering changes in cars over the last half century. We have shifted priority from the vehicle surviving a crash to the squishy and fragile thing(s) inside surviving the crash at the expense of the car.

I suspect the original philosophy included the concept that a car built like a tank best protected the occupant. At (relatively) low speeds and without every clueless person around driving one, that was probably a reasonable idea. But with higher speeds, higher population/vehicle density, and the dumbing down of standards to drive, we needed something very different. I'm not sure whether we went the best route, but it is a fairly effective route. Our last wreck was bad enough that 30-50 years ago we'd have been in the hospital. Instead we were just sore and Sharon a bit disoriented. The other couple went to teh hospital, but they were probably 20 years older than us.
 
Thank you. '62 w/slab board. Body appropriately refinished (thus it was affordable). The neck is untouched and has grain pattern of a special order bass today. The finish is mostly gone off the back of the neck and feels great. I love the feel of wood with no finish.
View attachment 4597834
Ahem.
 
I suspect the original philosophy included the concept that a car built like a tank best protected the occupant. At (relatively) low speeds and without every clueless person around driving one, that was probably a reasonable idea. But with higher speeds, higher population/vehicle density, and the dumbing down of standards to drive, we needed something very different. I'm not sure whether we went the best route, but it is a fairly effective route. Our last wreck was bad enough that 30-50 years ago we'd have been in the hospital. Instead we were just sore and Sharon a bit disoriented. The other couple went to teh hospital, but they were probably 20 years older than us.
Professional car racing has helped safety innovations as well as a few other areas.

The other day at Daytona (Xfinity series) there was a wreck where the engine and transaxle came out, and many other things, but the driver got out after the remains stopped. About 2:00 is a slow look at what was going on. Amazing safety features for 190 MPH (at a cost). Including the fence which is designed to grab and disperse energy.
 
I suspect the original philosophy included the concept that a car built like a tank best protected the occupant. At (relatively) low speeds and without every clueless person around driving one, that was probably a reasonable idea. But with higher speeds, higher population/vehicle density, and the dumbing down of standards to drive, we needed something very different. I'm not sure whether we went the best route, but it is a fairly effective route. Our last wreck was bad enough that 30-50 years ago we'd have been in the hospital. Instead we were just sore and Sharon a bit disoriented. The other couple went to teh hospital, but they were probably 20 years older than us.
DC-3s have a safety rating of 5…..you’d be losing money if you built modern airliners to that standard…..sad but true…
 
Your Pbass' sister bass.
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Another one of my lousy pictures:

IMG_20190804_111142_resized_20200429_050201873.jpg