I've finally finished up a few projects so I thought I'd share them with ya'll.
First up, the remains of my first project:
One of the reasons that I went to repair school was breaking the truss rod in my 1975 G3. I replaced the rod and added a carbon fiber strip to strengthen the neck. At that time I also put on a fretless ebony board and refinished it blue. I loved the way it looked and played, but it sat in the corner for a few years. It turns out that the only fretless instrument I was interested in was the upright bass.
Fast forward a few years. I had a friend who was just getting into bass and had acquired a 77 EB3. He played on it for a while and found that it was a poor fit for the C-tuned sludge rock he was playing. We talked about my G3 and how it might be a better instrument for what he was doing. I put the original maple board on and made an even trade.
Last December he mistakenly left it in his trunk for about three weeks (in Minnesota!!
). The neck was all messed up and he took it to a local shop for adjustment. I had told him to bring it to me because of the graphite. Other techs might get too overzealous and snap it. Well, another tech took the nut right off. We talked about trying to remove the graphite and put in yet another truss rod, but I wasn't very keen on that idea.
About that time I bought a Ripper carcass off of ebay. I planned on finding all of the parts and rehabbing it to former glory. I had enough basses at the time and he needed an instrument so I offered to pull the electronics and make a Gripper.
I just finished up with it and thought I'd show it off:
I made a custom TRC for it:
The strings running to the nut obscure it a little but I think it turned out well.
My other project was rehabbing another Ripper for myself. My karma must have been good, for about the time I started the project for my friend I came across a Ripper for a very low price. I used that bridge on the Gripper and ordered the Supertone in black. I also had the black Gibby tuners that Old Puppy offered up here for free (send me your address) so I did up the Ripper in black. I need to do a slight fret level so the strings are off, but here's a pic of the two together:
I apologize for the poor pics. I could use a new camera (and some photography pointers
).
I'm beginning my next project: a 1983 Squier Bullet bass that will have a mahogany cap to cover the many previous routs. I'll put the cavity control in the rear and install complete Ripper electronics in it. I can't wait!
