Well, this story started one afternoon while browsing TalkBass. How not-unusual, you say... 
I happened upon a thread titled "I bought a JAE bird!". Not connecting the acronym with The Who's bassplayer's initials, I clicked on it and continued deeper. Aha, some guy down in Florida making pretty cool Fenderbirds. I was already pretty good with my small stable of instruments and not planning any purchases. Then, after going to Cataldo's website, I find out that "Thunderbuckers are arriving soon". My antennae fully extend at this point. I was lucky enough to have an original series II Thunderbird for a while and always dug the sound every time I played it. I ended up placing an order for one of his deluxe models but couldn't make up my mind to go with his '63 or '66 Thunderbuckers so I specified '66 and ordered a pair of '63's from Steve at the ranch. I was also reading about how many players were digging the new Squier Jaguars. At first I was looking at the P/J's but after discovering the Special HB, I figured it to be a better candidate for pickup transplants. I snagged one off the 'bay and when it arrived I was very impressed with its quality. After Carlo kindly shared with me the pickup locations of the Thunderbird IV, I discovered that the existing route was located nearly perfectly but would need to be enlarged a bit. The only mods I performed myself were to replace the stock bridge with a Gotoh 203 (which have channels for the saddle screws to prevent side-to-side movement during strenuous play - my only gripe with the stock Fender-style) and removed the pickup, preamp, and installed passive v/v/t electronics. While waiting for Steve to catch up with pent-up demand for his Thunderbuckers, I contacted John K to see if he was interested in helping me make this concept happen. Thankfully, he assented and let me tell you brothers and sisters, he did a RIGHTEOUS job of it. I received pics in this morning's e-mail and just got off the phone with him a little while ago. He's got me even more stoked than I was before I sent him all of the components. We were sharing our amazement at the quality of this bass and how well it came together. The pickguard (Allparts black pearloid) looks nothing like the sample on their site, but really works with the whole aesthetic. It also turned out to be four-ply instead of three. John crafted a real nut from Cyclovac to replace the stock plastic unreasonable facsimile. He was very impressed as was I with the quality of the neck and fret job. He did perform some fine-tuning and polishing to perfect it. One item not visible in the pics is a custom plastic shim under the ring for the bridge pickup that he made to retain the spirit of the original gibbys and to help hide the bottom of the pickup (they are very shallow). What's really got me excited was his simple description of the pickups - "These things sound freakin' awesome!" Enough babble, on with some pics:
Kudos to all the characters mentioned in the telling of this tale, and my personal thanks once again, gentlemen!
I happened upon a thread titled "I bought a JAE bird!". Not connecting the acronym with The Who's bassplayer's initials, I clicked on it and continued deeper. Aha, some guy down in Florida making pretty cool Fenderbirds. I was already pretty good with my small stable of instruments and not planning any purchases. Then, after going to Cataldo's website, I find out that "Thunderbuckers are arriving soon". My antennae fully extend at this point. I was lucky enough to have an original series II Thunderbird for a while and always dug the sound every time I played it. I ended up placing an order for one of his deluxe models but couldn't make up my mind to go with his '63 or '66 Thunderbuckers so I specified '66 and ordered a pair of '63's from Steve at the ranch. I was also reading about how many players were digging the new Squier Jaguars. At first I was looking at the P/J's but after discovering the Special HB, I figured it to be a better candidate for pickup transplants. I snagged one off the 'bay and when it arrived I was very impressed with its quality. After Carlo kindly shared with me the pickup locations of the Thunderbird IV, I discovered that the existing route was located nearly perfectly but would need to be enlarged a bit. The only mods I performed myself were to replace the stock bridge with a Gotoh 203 (which have channels for the saddle screws to prevent side-to-side movement during strenuous play - my only gripe with the stock Fender-style) and removed the pickup, preamp, and installed passive v/v/t electronics. While waiting for Steve to catch up with pent-up demand for his Thunderbuckers, I contacted John K to see if he was interested in helping me make this concept happen. Thankfully, he assented and let me tell you brothers and sisters, he did a RIGHTEOUS job of it. I received pics in this morning's e-mail and just got off the phone with him a little while ago. He's got me even more stoked than I was before I sent him all of the components. We were sharing our amazement at the quality of this bass and how well it came together. The pickguard (Allparts black pearloid) looks nothing like the sample on their site, but really works with the whole aesthetic. It also turned out to be four-ply instead of three. John crafted a real nut from Cyclovac to replace the stock plastic unreasonable facsimile. He was very impressed as was I with the quality of the neck and fret job. He did perform some fine-tuning and polishing to perfect it. One item not visible in the pics is a custom plastic shim under the ring for the bridge pickup that he made to retain the spirit of the original gibbys and to help hide the bottom of the pickup (they are very shallow). What's really got me excited was his simple description of the pickups - "These things sound freakin' awesome!" Enough babble, on with some pics:Kudos to all the characters mentioned in the telling of this tale, and my personal thanks once again, gentlemen!
