Project Thunderstang!

[Alanko]

The deeper I wade into the Hondo restoration project the more I realise it is going to need considerable time and energy to complete. If nothing else, using Stanley blades as cabinet scrapers really ruins your hands for a while!

I bought a circa 1995 Gibson Thunderbird pickup as a candidate pickup for the Hondo before settling on the double Dimarzio route. This means that the Thunderbird pickup needs a new home.



I firstly decided to clean it up a little as I don't like those ghostly string marks that black plastic pickups tend to get over time.




I then started thinking about my other basses, and which could be a good candidate for the pickup. The clearest choice, for me, was my Mustang. This bass is a mashup of a Fender Vintera Mustang neck, Squier Classic Vibe body, Hosco pickguard and Nordstrand NM4 pickup, with most of the Vintera hardware retained for the body. I didn't want to chop up this bass, so I started looking for a second candidate.

The best value option for landing a Mustang bass body, bridge and control plate (and knowing they will all fit together) was to buy a complete Squier Mustang bass and parting it out.



Like the first Squier 'Classic Vibe' body in my possession, the finish is a bit rough around the edges. The metalwork, fretwork and neck in general lack a certain finesse. The electronics are also clearly comprised of the cheapest pots, jack and pickups out the parts catalogs as well. I know people hail Squier CV stuff as being secret Fender-killer grade equipment, but I always think the subtle downward shift in quality is pretty apparent. Using tinted lacquer on the neck or the other occasional nod to period accuracy doesn't make up for rough fretwork or garbage-tier electronics. Don't tell Talkbass I said this!

Due to being stuck at home in lockdown I've tried to give myself a proverbial kick up the rear every few months, either by buying a 'breakthrough' tool or piece of equipment or, six months ago, taking up the flute. I finally caved this week and bought a little router. I've modified many bass bodies with chisels, Dremel tools and generally inappropriate methods. I plan to make a template out of 5mm-thick acrylic, use my hand drill and forstner bits to remove the 'meat' and then tidy everything up with the router, using a number of shallow passes.



This is the general proof of concept. Fender Vintera neck mounted on the donor Squier body, with the Thunderbird pickup roughly situated in the right spot.

[morrow]

That's looking a bit like the little DC Jrs , and they're fine little things !
That should sound great .

[Pilgrim]

I'm not sure how much difference there is between Squier's Bronco and Mustang basses. The pickguard and pickups look like the biggest differences.

There's a long thread on TB about modded Broncos, and that body is a great test bed for pickup mods. It's easy to try a lot of different stuff in there with a bit of body and pickguard modification. 

I picked up a used Bronco just to try some pickup swaps, and found that the neck was very fast and easy to play. No problems with finish or frets. I tried two or three pickups, including a 50's style P-bass single coil, but eventually settled on a pickup from a Gretsch 2202 bass and have been very happy with it. I also added some competition Mustang stripes using automotive striping tape.

I'll bet that one is going to turn out very nice. Should be an easy one to work with, and there is probably plenty of room under that PG. I confess that I used a Dremel on mine.

[Rob]

Please post another picture of that Pilgrim.  It brings peace to my soul.

[Alanko]

My first bass was a Squier Bronco. It was alright, though a wee bit basic. The body was the same uncontoured slab as a Mustang. The pickguard was a single ply thing that was neither a Mustang or Musicmaster outline. The pickup itself was a Strat-style single coil with six poles. I've sometimes thought about picking up another to mess around with! From memory it actually sounded pretty good, and recorded pretty well.

I routed the Thunderstang body! The last time I routed anything I was using a wobbly plunge adapter base for my Dremel. At a guess that was more dangerous than using a proper router as it seemed to break Dremel bits very easily. The Dremel router bits also never seemed to follow templates very well and made a lot of noise (probably the collet wearing out) and smoke.

I had some good fun working on the Mustang body after work today:



I made the pickup template from 5 mm acrylic, which was a total pig to work with. It melts easily, smells bad and makes gritty dust. My routing chops need developing for sure, as I lifted the router out the cavity while it was still spooling down and took a bit of a bite out of my template! I think it took three times longer to make the template, versus routing out wood.

For all these early lessons, I'm pretty happy with this!



A wee bit of chipping to the finish, but nothing major.

[Pilgrim]

Please post another picture of that Pilgrim.  It brings peace to my soul.

I have made it so...

[Rob]

I have made it so...

My HERO

[Pilgrim]

My HERO

I hope it doesn't ruin my image that I put black & white dice knobs on it after the photo was taken.... 

[Alanko]

I got this far...



...but ran into issues. The Thunderbird pickup is very susceptible to interference. I live next to a railway line with 25 kV AC overhead cabling, so it is the acid test for any humbucker or noiseless pseudo-singlecoil pickup. The Thunderbird pickup picks up the railway interference worse than the Guild BS-1 pickups in my Starfire bass.

I've done some scouting online, and the outcome appears to be that some T-Bird pickups are like this! Its a pig in a poke.

I removed the black epoxy tile off the back of the pickup, re-glued the magnets as they were slightly loose and grounded the pole-piece blades. None of this helped, though in testing on the bench it seems like one coil is really susceptible to any light tapping or touching of the polepiece. I'm not suggesting there is any read-across between a coil being oddly microphonic and the thing also picking up RF (or whatever flavour of interference my house is bathed in), but it seems a bit odd.

As such, I've quickly reconfigured my Mustang as a regular split-coil Mustang...



Giving me this, which isn't too bad!




...but I still want a Thunderstang! The tone I got from the Gibson pickup was tantalisingly good. It puts back a lot of the low-mids soup that seem a bit too dainty from Mustang pickups. The 'prototype' that willed me into doing this work in the first place is this:



This bass was on sale on Reverb a while ago. Its a '70s Mustang refinished in silverburst and with a Novak T-bird pickup added.

I have an 8 k ohm Chinabucker coming at some point to allow me to complete this work. From past experience these pickups are so shallow that you could basically surface-mount them on the pickguard. As such I will probably have to build a wooden insert to fit in the pickup cavity. Watch this space...

[gearHed289]

FWIW, as much as I like and use Gibson TB+ pups, they are some of the noisiest pickups I've ever used, and I've got three Rics and a Jazz bass!

[BTL]

I'm guessing that 'prototype' uses a ring because the pickup is so shallow. The ring keeps it from wobbling, especially if the bottom edge clears the pickguard. I usually mount the ring after the pickup is in place and close to the correct height.

For Lollar Thunderbird and Senn Model 1 pickups, I use the identical process detailed in the following link, but with EZ-LOK 329-004 inserts:

Guitar and Bass Neck Threaded Inserts

The main difference is that I drill the hole about 3/8" deep and use a screw and washer when installing to ensure that the insert sits just at the body's surface. Then I use surgical tubing instead of a spring with a washer at both ends. This enables the pickup's back plate and the insert itself to take all of the pressure and there are no forces at work to pull the insert out of the body.

If you're tapping a softer wood for the insert, just flood the hole with thin CA and hit it with accelerator prior to tapping and you'll be good to go. It's an extremely solid mounting system that provides a very wide range of height adjustment, especially for Thunderbird pickups. These shots should help to give a better visual:

[Alanko]

Threaded inserts look the business. I've made a pine insert:



I also made a pickguard. I really should get an adaptor to turn my router into a table router. I followed a Stewmac tutorial on routing a pickguard from above, using a sacrificial template and offcuts (and pickguard offcuts) to build an outer wall for the router to run around:



Pickguard mark four was routed in the back garden!



In order of play:

Pickguard 1 ended up with a chip cut out of the neck pocket when I lifted the router as it was spooling down.

Pickguard 2 ended up with a chip out the pickup route for the same reason (this also junked my pickup template).

Pickguard 3 ended up with a pickup route 5 mm too wide.

Final results:



I don't think it needs the chrome trim ring around the pickup. I think it might make the whole thing look too big, and out of balance with the rest of the bass?

The pickup was wax potted, and it sits on a pad I cut out of a mouse mat (I buy them on Ebay for this specific purpose).




And it sounds pretty nice!

[Dave W]

I think you're right about leaving off the pickup ring.

Sounds good.

[BTL]

That looks and sounds fantastic! I prefer no ring with a pickguard...just guessing that some choose to add them when the pickup sits too high.

[Rob]

I hope it doesn't ruin my image that I put black & white dice knobs on it after the photo was taken.... 

A little tarnish maybe.