Egregiously Off-Topic!

seth_lorinczi · Post by **seth_lorinczi** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 12:00 pm

I know I'm posting in the wrong forum, but it seems like there's a good deal of Rickenbacker/Thunderbird crossover here (is it a neck-through thing I wonder?).

Just got this beaut back from the refin shop and I'm struggling to get the action down. The nut is filed about as low as it can go. The bridge is as low as can be without string buzz. The neck has reasonable looking curvature, though it's concentrated near the nut. What else can I do?

lars · Post by **lars** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 2:34 pm

Try to tighten the truss rod gently (1/4 turn at the time) and see if it gets better. Gibson has a special tool for adjusting the TR (turning the nut).
The Bird looks nice! Is it a bicentennial?

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 3:05 pm

Anyone who uses egregiously in a topic title can start ANY topic he wants!!!!!

loendmaestro · Post by **loendmaestro** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 3:38 pm

The neck on my T-bird moves a little year round. It's got a slight dip & I'm lucky enough to have a fantastic luthier who tweaks it for me every 6 months or so.

rickfan60 · Post by **rickfan60** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 3:42 pm

They are fragile and difficult to balance but WHAT a sound they make! The T-Bird is the only Gibson bass that excites me. Sorry to all of the EB fans out there but no EB holds a candle to the TB. The tone just ooozes testosterone. Too bad they are SOOOO expensive now-a-days.

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 3:49 pm

Hey now, in 1972, I had an EBO with those coated strings!

jps · Post by **jps** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 4:53 pm

Only the first couple of years in the early '60s were the TBs neckthrough, after that they were/are setneck.

lshaia · Post by **lshaia** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 1:28 am

The IVs are still neck through, the Studio models are set neck. TBird necks are incredible, but they look pretty fragile up near the head stock.
http://www.gibson.com/Products/GibsonElectric/Gibson%20Electric%20Guitars/Gibson%20Basses/Thunderbird%20IV/

I love that color, Seth, if I ever had mine refinished that would be the color I'd choose.

highway_star · Post by **highway_star** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 1:44 am

Hmmmm......... And I swore to my wife that I was done buying basses.

admin · Post by **admin** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 2:08 am

In an attempt to propitiate this thread will be going to "The Others" in the near future.

loendmaestro · Post by **loendmaestro** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 2:23 am

Steve Cooper & I went through this awhile back...

Please don't get me wrong I am a Rick guy through & through, but T-birds are something else.
BIG, BIG tone. I thought it was going to be all boomy & muddy, but no. Tons of *** end, but really punchy as well. Very well rounded bass.

As with Ricks I love the neck through construction. The neck is impossibly thin & extremely fast. Some of the guys in some of my bands prefer the T-bird to anything else I own. The only drawbacks are: iffy Gibson quality control, tough (at best)access to the upper frets, and it has the biggest case ever!

I do love that bass though...

It almost looks as cool as a Rickenbacker!!

greg_mitchell · Post by **greg_mitchell** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 2:46 am

Nice bass. I do like the looks of those TBs.

john_l · Post by **john_l** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 4:46 am

Amazingly it was a Thunderbird that brought me to my first Rickenbacker.

I have a non-reverse bird that I bought in 1969. The headstock broke in 1979. It kept breaking. The music store next store to the repair shop had a JetGlo 4001 that I fell in love with immediatly. The slim neck and pickup cover were easy to get used to and of course it was beautiful.

I still have the Thunderbird, fixed it myself the last two breaks. I have had a few Ricks since then, always replacing missing pickup covers, and now have an '81 FireGlo 4003s.

john_l · Post by **john_l** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 4:46 am

double posted.

seth_lorinczi · Post by **seth_lorinczi** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:05 am

Thanks for the comments folks, and my apologies Peter. I know I posted to the wrong place but, well, I just felt more at home in the "basses" area. I'll be better about that.

As for the bass, it's a '77, so it still came with the Bicentennial pickguard. What it also came with was an incredible amount of abuse due to some punker friends decades ago. This included:

-Burning (yes, BURNING) off the finish
-Nailing a Fender-style bridge to the body
-Spray-painting the body and pickguard
-Breaking the headstock clean off at least once

Needless to say, I got the bass for free, and spent the last several years collecting the parts for it, and finally took it to John Stephan (great guy, great luthier) to refin in Pelham Blue.

I agree completely about Gibson basses: They do nothing for me, except this one, which is pretty special.

Coincidentally, I just read an account of John Entwistle smashing his favorite red T-Bird onstage in MI in the early '70s. He wrote something to the effect of: "When you drop a T-Bird they break right at the nut. I left the last note ringing and leant the bass against the amp to feed back. Moon knocked it over on his way offstage so I finished the job!"

Again, thanks for the comments and advice, I'm confident I'm going to get this thing up and playing soon!