The Last Bass Outpost

I thought I'd post a follow up and thank everyone for their help in trying to locate this part. I ended up buying a Gibson bridge/tuners complete from someone. I tried to use the Gibson bridge on this bass but the posts were slightly too narrow to fit it. The Epi bridge fit fine though, so I used the Gibson saddles in the Epi bridge and it worked out just fine.

Here's the finished product:






It plays and sounds great! It took almost no time to get the truss rod adjusted and the bass intonation set to near perfect after being reassembled. It has nice low action and a great sound. Unfortunately it's also up for sale now since I'm moving soon and need to thin the herd. I did get a few gigs with this though but unfortunately it's just not as comfortable for me as my other basses so it's going to have to go for now. I may eventually venture back into the TBird world though, I love the look and sound of them!

The body wasn't so much reshaped as it was just a sloppy sanding job when they were stripping the old finish off. I've had to do some smoothing, and they basically sanded the rear cavity cover area flush, so the lip the cover sits in isn't there for half of it. I'm going to have to do some creative work with the router to get that back there to look original. Shouldn't be that bad though.

Well the guy I bought this project from found the 3rd bridge post, so at least I'll have all 3 of those. I think I'll just buy a chrome saddle set and be done with it. If it bothers me that much I'll get them powder coated black or something. Buying the saddles will be the cheapest solutions though as its only $23 or so shipped for the set.

I'm not TOO worried about getting the right posts for the current. Right now the body is down to bare wood, I can always install new threaded inserts, assuming I can find ones that fit whichever posts I get. It probably won't be as hard as finding a bridge for this thing!

Original look is sort of what I'm going for, as this is my first TBird so I don't want to go too far off with it. I guess I'll just have to keep a look out for a Gibson one.

Thanks for the information everybody!

That's good to know. So these saddles would fit, just possibly have a height problem? I guess I could just get these and live with them being chrome for now.
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Bass-Bridge-Saddles-For-Gibson-Tunematic-NICKEL_W0QQitemZ360149258718QQcmdZViewItemQQptZGuitar_Accessories?hash=item53da9191de&_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116

Though the whole bridge isn't much more expensive, maybe I should get one for 40 bucks or so and figure out what to do. I was excited that this bass already had black hardware so I wouldn't have to buy new stuff like I do on most! I was wrong, oh well

So all those 3 point bridges aren't even the same size? Yikes...

Besides the bridge I have everything else I need. I haven't heard great things about Epi pickups but I'll give them a chance to prove themselves before I drop coin on new ones. I also need to decide on a color...I've been drooling over several choices, most of which I saw in TBird1958's posts on TB's few TBird threads...

Thanks, I don't understand why it's impossible to get the parts in black since all of them come with it (The Epi ones, anyway) from what I can see. I could always get a Hipshot replacement but those cost as much as I paid for this project!

Hello everyone,

I've recently begun an Epiphone TBird bass project. I have most of the parts I need, but the bridge I have is missing one of the 3 posts. I am also missing all 4 saddles for it. I can't seem to locate anywhere that sells these parts in black which is what all the other hardware is. I can only find chrome. Does anybody know where I might be able to get these parts? Or do I have to just watch eBay and hope I get lucky?

Thanks for any help!