Gear Discussion Forums > Bill's Shop: Projects, Mods & Repairs
The Phoenix... the restoration of a rare custom-made "Thunderbird"
Highlander:
Thought I'd take this a bit more seriously than my "LuFear" posting...
As there are some newbies appearing, lets give you a bit of a history lesson, in brief... This is a Peter Cook Custom, estimated to have been built in 1972, possibly earlier, not been able to find out... I've owned her since the late 70's; 3rd owner. This is a rather obscure instrument made by a now "retired" English Luthier, best known for being John Entwistle's roadie/set-up specialist, and maker of a significant number of custom basses (the Fenderbirds were all his, AFAIK, and a rather exotic instrument stylised for the cover of "The Who By Numbers", which was built and used prior to the cover being created) for JAE... apart from JAE's customs, I have never seen or heard of another bass made by him, but have seen 2 differing Firebird doublenecks from the same era... as I said, a rather rare-bird... ps I have not been the most careful of owners... :vader:
EDIT
Thought it would be beneficial for some to see what she looked like in 1979, shortly after I got my RD...
Well, it's done... the "Tequila-Bird" is dead... post the opening of the shed for business, I stripped her down, everything off, bar the nut and post inserts... Unlike Joe (with access to aviation stripper - presume that is tolulene based? What do you do for a living Joe...?) I've gone for Nitromors...
first coat, plus some scoring to start the ingress...
a good start, but not really touched the original fin, except for some crackling...
post second coat... the damage to the control area is now becoming more apparent...
an inset of the broken area... the original damage (some equipment fell on her in a studio) caused a cave-in of the area, whereupon I fitted a strat-type input, to fill in the hole, repaired the remainder and backed this with an epoxy based wood filler, to support the remaining structure...
post the 3rd coat and some wire-wool... some of you will be wondering why I went to the fin I had from this original cherry fin... You could probably make a good living as a shrink if you could find that answer... ;)
some parts of the binding had loosened, and started to split as soon as I tried to ease it away, so stripped the lot; lots of little bits, even nice little dot markers on the edge... :sad: I regret this had to be done as it was wonderfully finished and edged up to the top of each of the frets... Can anyone recognise what the bodywork wood is yet, and I presume the facing on the neck is ebony...?
The head has started to be stripped off too - this undercoat is quite a pig to remove... cracles-up but not easily loosening...
This is my greatest area of concern... I have started on the back of the neck at the head to check the "crack" and now I've found 2 surface cracks, which I still hope are the fin; I will only know for sure once I have finished stripping the area - there is a small "dint" which is visible in both shots, where the line originates from and up to the right; the other is roughly the same direction, closer to the head... the neck is a three-part laminate...
Well, that's the start... gonna be in Cornwall (working) and Devon (drinking), which is not near here, for part of the weekend, so see you next week... (just gonna check the remainder of the new posts, and then gone...)
Dave W:
From what I can see so far, looks like mahogany body and ebony board.
If I were facing a job like this, I think I'd go to Devon to drink too. Still, you should be pleased when you're all done restoring it.
chromium:
--- Quote from: Kenny Five-O on August 27, 2009, 10:53:12 AM ---Unlike Joe (with access to aviation stripper - presume that is tolulene based? What do you do for a living Joe...?)
--- End quote ---
Kill brain cells. ;D
Now that's a project! :o What do you have planned for this?
godofthunder:
Looks good Ken ! Just go carefully and slowly. If you are going to refinish the bass natural like original you may have to make the consession of making a control plate for the control and input area. Now that I am thinking about it the input area could be filled with new wood or epoxy, false grained and the input jack moved to the edge of the body. Lots to think about, no rush right ? I bet there will be lots of input on this bass, and many good ideas.
godofthunder:
Ken here is my Phoenix named by Uwe years ago looks like this now started out as a shard
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