The Last Bass Outpost

Here's a picture after routing the edges. Obviously it's before the control cavity was re-routed

And here's a picture to give you guys an idea of how much the body was thinned out. You can see the hole from where the strap button was. Obviously before I thinned it down that hole was centered evenly and now it's way off.

First order of business, strip it!!! I used a heat gun and the finish melted off the body very quickly which was a pleasant surprise. I didn't think it was a good idea to use the heat gun on the neck so I sanded that and I got a little bit carried away (more on that later). Anyway, no turning back now.


Now the next thing on my list (and one of the most important in my opinion) was to thin out the body. But how? I posted some questions on Reranch and I started asking some friends with woodworking experience and I was told that it could be a potential disaster and that I shouldn't mess with it. Obviously sanding it by hand would be a total nightmare because it would be impossible to keep it even and sand it perfectly flat. Not to mention how much work it would be. I wanted to thin it down considerably too so I was at least smart enough to not go that route. It was definitely a tricky one because it's a set neck bass. If I could remove the neck then I might have been able to just plain the body but obviously sending the whole bass through the plainer, especially with that giant headstock angled the way it is would big a HUGE mistake. My friend has a wood shop and he was the one that helped me with some of the work. I kept bugging him with different ways to approach it but he didn't think any of the ideas would work. Basically every idea fell into the "ah, maybe it could work but maybe it will screw it up really bad too" category. There didn't seem to be a safe bet. I'm sure some of you guys would have been able to pull it off but again, I'm a rookie. So after many discussions with my friend we finally came up with a solution. It was a sketchy one though. Sorry, I don't have pictures of this part (I know, lame, right? especially since this was the most interesting and difficult part). So my friend also goes to another wood shop for certain things and he said that they had a huge drum sander. It basically looks like a huge plainer but instead of blades it has huge drums covered in sand paper. I'm sure some of you guys have seen them. OK, so what's the game plan I ask? Basically we would have to run it through the sander, almost like we were going to plain it but instead it's getting sanded instead. Why is this better then just running it through the plainer? Well, if we were to run it through the plainer we would have to send it all the way through and it of course would also plain most of the headstock off. We thought maybe we could send it through and then stop the machine once the body goes through but my friend thought that would be a potential disaster. With the drum sander we could run it through and then pull it back out since it's only sanding and not cutting. And we could sand it a little at a time and go slow and steady with it. Basically more control. We needed to find a way to hold onto the bass though so we could push it in and then pull it out so the bass wouldn't go all the way through. Hum, what should we use? I know, the bass neck! So we ended up using the neck as a handle to send the bass into this huge drum sander and to pull it back out repeatedly until we got the bass to the thickness that we wanted. Pretty sketchy to say the least but it worked like a charm. Oh and also, another problem was that we couldn't lay the bass flat on it's front because the fret board would get in the way so we had to screw on a few 1/4 boards on the the front of it to make it level when we laid it flat so the fretboard wouldn't get damaged. Man I wish I had pictures of this whole process. By the way, I went to the vintage Guitar Center in Hollywood to take measurements of their vintage sunburst NR bird. I measured the thickness of the body, measured the thickness and placement of the belly contour and where exactly to put the route for the second pickup. I wanted to make sure I got everything correct and since they had a real vintage one there I figured I should take advantage of the situation. Oh, they want $10,999 for that bass by the way. Yikes!!! It is beautiful though and it does play like a dream but I guess it should for that much money.

Here's how it looked after the sanding. Perfect. Now I need to route all the edges again and the control cavity.

Ok, so I'm not sure if anyone remembers my Bachbird story but here's a little recap:

A little over a year ago I ordered a BTH-1 bass through Rob. It took awhile to get it and when I did finally receive it the headstock was cracked. Bummer. I was already having some buyers remorse right after I ordered it because I really couldn't afford it at the time so when it arrived broken it was a disappointment to say the least. Nothing's worse than purchasing something when you can't afford it and then that purchase not working out. You can't help but feel like your being punished for spending the money in the first place. Ha ha. Anyway, of course I contacted Rob and he too was bummed for obvious reasons. As much as it was a hassle for me, it was also a big hassle and headache for him. He had to contact Roman at Bach and had to deal with the shippers and file a claim with insurance, etc. It also made the situation difficult because the international shipping was so expensive that shipping it back would have been a waste since the cost of shipping would be lost. It took awhile but the shipping company finally reimbursed Rob and he was able to send me a new bass. Also, we agreed that I would sell the damaged bass on Ebay and we would split the profits after all the Paypal and Ebay fees. I have to give Rob credit for handling everything very professionally and making sure that I got my new bass and with no further costs to me. I know it was a big pain in the ass for him and I really do appreciate it so, thanks again Rob!!!

Ok, so on to the project. Of course I wanted to mod the bass and seeing some of the Bach mods on here got me inspired. Initially my game plan was to go for the same thing as Chromium's Ocean Turquoise Bachbird and then I stumbled on this all black NR Thunderbird on the internet. I always liked the look of the black on black Gibson Grabbers so when I saw the black on black Thunderbird I had to go for it. Plus I was a little intimidated to go for a metallic color so I figured....black it is.

I will say that this entire project has been kind of a nightmare since day one. Plenty of missteps and mistakes were made, many moments of feeling that I was in over my head and many loooong months with no progress being made because I had no money. It got to a point where I kind of regretted the fact that I didn't just keep it stock and play it. It was too late for that though since I had already stripped it so I had to keep chipping away at it and I am glad I did because after a little over a year, the bass is FINALLY done and I absolutely love it. I will be updating this thread and will show you guys the whole process. I hope you guys enjoy checking it out more than I enjoyed doing it. That shouldn't be too hard since I didn't exactly have fun doing it. Ha ha. Of course when progress was being made I had fun but the bumps in the road almost made me throw it in the garbage. Ha ha.

Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention one important part of this whole thing. I am a total ROOKIE!!! Some of you guys are cranking out some amazing stuff but I have only refinished two basses before and the first one sucked so bad I can't even count it. I have done a few relic jobs though and I love to check out the message boards and ask a lot of questions. But, although I have been a member of this board and a member of the Reranch board for years I have never done any major guitar building or luthier work. I certainly don't have any real woodworking tools to work with so I definitely bit off more than I could chew. Anyway, stay tuned for my first update hopefully tomorrow.

God damn it, I already bought it. Great, now I'm going to have send it back or resell it. F*&k!!!

On another note: Whoa, yeah, that Explorer case is HUGE!!!

Cool, I just ordered the same case online. I got a good deal on it too, it was used for $38.99 plus $9.99 for shipping. Let's hope it fits and the seller knows what they are talking about when they described it.

What should work? Removing the plastic cover or grinding the corners of the plastic cover?

I actually had a guitar tech who worked at Fender take a look at it and they tried a few things and it would be a little better for a time and then it would go back. I can't remember if they said if it was a bow or twist because it was over a year ago and the bass has just been sitting in a case ever since. It's at my studio but I will probably go get it some time in the next week so I can look down the neck and hopefully be able to see for myself if it is indeed a bow or a twist.

I remember them trying a few different things like shimming the neck, letting it sit for a long period of time with the truss rod loosened up and also something to do with sitting it in a room where the temperature was at a certain level. Not sure what level that was though. I have had a few of these basses (US 62 reissues) and my friend also had one and the necks have always been a problem (at least for me and him). They are just really thin necks and I don't maintain them and adjust them as often as I should so I guess I am partly to blame. Maybe the things the person from Fender did actually did fix the neck but then I, again, didn't maintain it just like before so the same problem occurred.

I like that the Warmoth necks have the steel or graphite bars in the neck to help keep it stable. I know it adds a bit of weight but that doesn't really bother me. Anyway, although I have made some effort to repair it I haven't really done anything too extreme to try to fix it like maybe remove the fretboard to re-level the surface. That's something I don't really know how to do.

I will say that if I was to put it on Ebay I would definitely present it as a "project" and I would definitely describe it as honestly as possible. I would never try to pull a fast one and act like nothing was wrong with it. I would make sure that I specified that it "might" be able to be fixed since I don't know for sure. I have seen some pretty incredible projects on this board where people have saved guitars that I never thought was possible. So who knows for sure.

So, did anyone on here ever end up buying one of these, http://www.bachmusik.com/en/bth-1-semi-product_p1580? I know people on here were pushing to get this unfinished version of the Bachbird made so they could be customized but I don't remember ever seeing a post of anyone actually buying one and building it. I kept going back and forth about buying one but now it appears that they have sold out. If no one on here bought them then I wonder who did.