Q. What makes the perfect Thunderbird...? Discuss...

[Bionic-Joe]

 He replaced a broken headstock on a T bird II I once had a few years back. I had him make the 7 laminates-walnut mahogany. He does have accurate templates for reverse and non-reverse t birds. Trouble is...When he glued it.. the laminates didn't match up to the ones on the neck....and the top of the headstock was tapered....thick near the E tuner tapering down to the tip. And...Instead of the raised section being a slight route on the top of the headstock, (like I had asked for), He placed a piece of phenolic fiberboard like they did in the 70's. I found out he did this after I removed the tuners. He mis drilled all 4 of them and then tried to hide it with the fiber board as his excuse. Plus it took about 1 year. I personally won't use him. He's too far away. But he does have some cool machines and good at some other stuff. Fun to talk to.

[uwe]

That Epi headstock thing is interesting info. So is the part about a 2000 Blackbird with a three piece maho, not a nine-ply neck. Mine I recollect as nine-ply bit I'll take another look tomorrow.

Uwe

[gweimer]

If you are talking about the Axe-in-Hand in Dekalb Illinois,  a little over 30 years ago I bought my first Rickenbacker there and the pair of Dimarzio Model 1's that went on the previously mentioned Thunderbird. Gene Liberty had a shop upstairs and fixed the headstock on the 'Bird the first three times it broke, and refinned it.

That's the place!  I bought and traded a few basses with Larry. The one I really miss is the Guild M-85 I had.  Not only was it a semi-hollowbody, it was dead mint.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

My dream T-Bird would be neck-through mahagony body, possibly slightly thicker, with 60's pickups with nickel covers and hardware, a three point bridge and a Studio headstock.I'd take a shorter fretboard to fit in a Hobbit pickup right off the neck and a mudbucker midway between the bird pickups with a Musicman/Strat-style multiswitch wired to whatever I could experiment and like best, but still keep the classic three knob layout. I could even go for a maple neck with an ebony board, both for strength and less dive, but slab 'hog wouldn't break my heart. I could get all fru-fru and go for a solid rosewood neck too, but I doubt it would be easy to find a piece of good rosewood that large. If walnut could take the strain, I think that would be an interesting option as well. I also would want the big LP-standard board inlays in abalone and a laser-etched powder coated or nicked plated treadplate pickguard and a deep greenburst finish with some variation on the traditional logo. I'd also put some pretty hefty caps in there and make the buffer transformer switchable for the Hobbit as my playing tone is already pretty bright.

[kebo]

I just did a full column on this in my series at Premier Guitar Magazine.  Just submitted yesterday too!

[Highlander]

... and your outcome was...? 

Let us know when it's published...