Jean-Luc Pickguard

Is it a left-handed one though?

Its certainly a nice looking beastie

I ordered from the UK ebay seller as the postage was a lot cheaper

I previously had a bolt-on epiphone thunderbird - its a totally different animal

Was it a vintage pro thunderbird? The probuckers on those are certainly not underwhelming.

They're both excellent basses and you won't be disappointed with either. I own two vintage pro thunderbirds and they're both keepers.

I ordered the StewMac crank & it arrived this morning. Its perfect for my JMJ mustang. I've just given the truss rod a little tweak and it was so much better than using a screw driver. The two ended design makes it so easy to use at any angle of rotation of the truss rod nut. Well worth the money.

Justin Meldal-Johnsen was performing with St Vincent on SNL this week and was playing one of his signature mustangs (it might have been his original '66, but it looked pretty much identical to my JMJ sig) . He also played a hofner club which sounded nice & thumpy.

This sound feasible - its the only possible explanation that would explain taking a chisel & carving out such a big cavity.

I quite like it no, not really - its blinking horrible

It'll be a right bugger to clean when it gets dusty

it looks like you could break bits off like a toblerone

I absolutely love blue set (40 - 95) on the thunderbirds - I tried various other strings before finding these to be the perfect match in terms of feel & sound.

Ok - I'll add Cosmo black to the list even though it makes me think of Cosmo Smallpiece

I've added that as an option - in case anyone actually likes it

Ex miltary? I wonder what was originally in it. Might be an idea to run a geiger counter over it before getting too close.

There is now!

Bridge / tuners / strap buttons etc

I pity the fool that paid £450 for that

When you do a google image search for Justin Meldal Johnsen, you get images of JMJ playing various basses but quite a few feature him with his blue mustang or his signature fender model based on his original. Similarly an image search for Jack Casady returns a lot of images of Jack with his signature Epiphone semi in various colours. However a search for Marcus Miller returns a lot of pics of Marcus with his '77 Jazz and/or the Fender signature based on his '77 but no images of him with the Sire basses that carry his name. Does he actually play them? If not it seems an odd endorsement. Or am I missing something?

I’ve had cobalt flats on my thunderbirds for well over a year, and they’re still clean & bright with no rust, corrosion or discolouration.

Thanks for the link - the Stew Mac one is probably a better option for the JMJ, so its good to find a UK supplier.

I have just see this:https://www.northwestguitars.co.uk/truss-rod-adjustment-tool-phillips-head/ It looks like it *might* be just the thing to adjust my JMJ mustang when it needs a tweak, but it depends on whether there's enough room around the pickguard cutout to get it in place. I know that StewMac make a tool that will do the job, but ordering that one from the US is quite expensive in comparison. Has anyone tried one of these Hosco ones?

If real I would have expected them to write obscenities all over it instead of their names. I can't make out any of the scribble - is it supposed to be Glen or Sid era?