Wounded 'Bird in the Swamp

[dadagoboi]

I won this on Ebay Sunday.  Epi Tbird Pro IV stripped of hardware and electronics, serial number removed and 'USED' stamped on the back of the headstock.  The description said "note from our supplier says, 'bad truss rod' ".  I figured what the hay, I don't need this so I threw in a lowball offer. My winning bid was $71 plus 30 shipping.  Boy was I surprised!  Did some research and found some good info on removing fretboards intact and reusing them.  This afternoon I removed a board from a Chinese P neck really easily as practice.  Fed Ex brought me the Epi this (Wed) afternoon, Ohio to Florida in 2 days.  First thing I did was to try to adjust the trussrod.  The nut was buggered.  Then I checked the straightness of the neck, seems like more than enough back bow in it.  So now I'm thinking that a screw extractor (easy out) will remove the stripped nut and I'll have a through neck TBird platform for a project.  Maybe a TBird Studio semi clone but with a bridge/tailpiece combo and chrome hardware and pups.  I'm digging that radical Studio headstock but maybe I'll come to my senses.

[OldManC]

Cool! Now I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with it. I like all the projects and builds going on lately. It's like hot rod guys. You start with an idea or a platform but what you end up with is a reflection of you more than anything else.

[dadagoboi]

And if I go with that headstock I may just be a pencil necked geek

[Denis]

Neato! Good score, Carlo. That body looks REALLY long without all the hardware on it.

[Highlander]

Nice...

I've been watching for a damaged or budget Pro to turn fretless but nothing's coming up at a sensible price...

[dadagoboi]

Yesterday I tried a screw extractor (easy out), it could not budge the truss rod nut and I don't want to break anything.  Put on a bridge using 2 screws into existing holes in the body.  Strung up the bird and tuned it to pitch and it had ZERO relief and buzzing at the first fret no matter how high I raised the bridge saddles.  So I tuned it up a whole step.  Not bad.  This morning after futzing around, I strung it E to G .105,.105,.080,.045.  That provided enough tension to get some relief, calm the bees and play OK.  Close enough.  The next step was to install 2 passive EMG 35HZ that I bought on the Bay in separate auctions.  Pots, jack and knobs came from the donor LH SX that supplied StratoBaster's neck.  Tuners are from an ebay fiver (3+2) set so one of them is a lefty but no problem if used for E and you remember it's a reverse and the rest aren't.  Guard is from my '89 Orville for the photo op.

The bridge is a little off center, it's close enough for me to think the original might have been off.  Anyway, it intonates, plays, and sounds good.  There was a brief moment of panic before I realized the pots were wired backwards because they came off a Lefty.  Weighs around 9.5 lbs.

I'm going to leave everything as is for a while and then probably remove the board, change out the trussrod and normalize all the weirdness...

[Garrett]

looking good...i like it!

[Rhythm N. Bliss]

Mighty cool ax for a C note! 

[Highlander]

You know enough about freeing up a stuck not I presume but me, I'd keep spraying a little WD40 (or US equiv) for about a few days, let it sit, and then use heat on the nut with a high wattage iron...

[dadagoboi]

[

You know enough about freeing up a stuck not I presume but me, I'd keep spraying a little WD40 (or US equiv) for about a few days, let it sit, and then use heat on the nut with a high wattage iron...

I'm considering the WD-40 (which was discovered/invented in San Diego) and heat method.  At this point I'm OK with the bass the way it is.  Too many projects!

[Highlander]

It's that event horizon thing... yeah...?

[dadagoboi]

It's that event horizon thing... yeah...?

Luckily the short term memory loss obscures it most of the time.

[Highlander]

What were you saying...?