W1_Pro

Which one Steve? A proper Birchenbacker is a rare and wonderful thing....

Thanks Red, I had an idea this had been covered before but I could not remember where..

wrong thread!

Apologies if this has been done before, but I just came accross this on Gumtree. https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/1970s-john-birch-fretless-thunderbird-bass-handmade-in-the-uk/1504913094 Its apparently a John Birch build from the 70's but the only thing that I can see on the bass that looks remotely genuine is the bridge. That looks like Birch in house hardware. The pickups the seller says are non orignal, in fact they seem to be guitar pickups, so thats a bust, and the machine heads could be anything. There is also no Birch branding at all on the thing, which is unusual in my experience, John normally got his name on every single piece of hardware on an instrument and the headstock too. Anyone have any thoughts as to what this might be?

There will be some remote corner of the internet devoted to them, of that I am convinced.....

That name though. Anus Basses. Just can't stop thinking it...

Thats very good value for a handmade neck, IMHO.

It actually sounds quite nice. The dimarzio pickup is a brutal thing. Really good, gutteral P bass tone.

Great bass for that money. Go for it.

So, its finished, and it works. After a long WhatsApp with the estimable Andyjr1515 I decided to at least postpone my original plan of shaving down the heel and do what Andy was suggesting, file down the frets where the strings are bottoming out. He reasoned that in filing down the frets, I'd not be doing anything as drastic as removing material from the heel of the neck, plus of course its easily reversible. After messing about with the bass a bit I decided that every fret from 21-24 would have to be lowered, so I pretty much ground them down as far as I could. Its wasn't too bad a job only being the top few frets. Anyhow, I put the bass back together and its all pretty good. There are two buzzes on the neck now, but I that's more to do with my shoddy refret than anything else. It plays pretty nicely although the neck is a bit of a cricket bat- and thats after me slimming it down. I decided to simply ignore the slope on the neck where it stands a couple of mil proud of the body just in front of the pickup. You have to look closely to see it and even when you do it looks like it could just be a raised centre block á la a Gibson T bird. I'm delighted that this lovely and interesting old bass has been saved from the scrapheap. It will now sit in the corner of my living room as my noodling instrument. Thanks everyone for the comments, advice and encouragement. Special thanks to Andy for the idea. Top quality basschatting! A picture of the finished article below.

I've got one. I use it with a 400+ and its magnificent. Proper American heavy metal from Buchanan, Indiana. It would perhaps be better, as others have said, to leave this fine machine untouched and sell it on as is? You could be making someones dreams come true. 😃

I would second this. I used one at a practice room a couple of weeks ago (the 2x8") and it was astonishingly good for a tiny little combo with a five piece rock band. Kept up prety well. Also very light and easy to carry, which has to be a plus.

I do have a spreadsheet...and most of them live at my work (we supply equipment for events) so I'm very fortunate there. The biggest problem I find when you have a slightly silly number of basses is what you do with the cases. They take up a lot of room!

I'd have kept it. Then again I've only ever sold one bass. An Aria PB500 Precise and I regret it to this day. I'm up to about ninety now. I know that folks have this 'it deserves to be played' thing going and I absolutely think that is a very cool way to deal with the issue of too many basses. However, for me, getting rid of a bass would be like selling one of the kids. Unthinkable.

Nice bass that there Mustang. I've been thinking about getting one. Such good value for money.

So originally, I had two shims in (Business cards, folded in three and held together with double sided). So quite a lot of shim. That angled the neck and got the action to an acceptable level, but it meant that at the end of the fretboard (the end at the body that is), the strings were completely bottomed out when I played anything above the 14th fret iirc. So I took one of the two shims out. That made the action higher and the issue with the strings bottoming out is still there, although maybe not quite as bad, but the bass is still effectively unplayable...

I attempted to reduce the shimmage (is that a word?) today and met with no success. I think its going to ned to have some material removed from the heel. This I plan to do by doing a little bit of gentle planning. I need to get a plane first though...the only one I have atm is a black and decker electic one and that will be much too brutal. Gentle touch needed, I fancy...

They are hard down Andy...chocking off accross the strings when I go above the 14th fret...

The action is now a respectable 3mm at the 12th. However the strings are bottoming out between the 22nd and 24th frets because of the shimming (which is still quite extreme). So I'm going to remove one of the shims and see where we land, but I think I might need to take a little bit of material off the heel of the neck.

The screws were from a kit I got off ebay. There were long neck fixing screws and shorter neck fixing screws, these are the shorter option. So when it was all back together the end of the neck sits a little bit proud of the body:

So, I had the neck clamped up all night and the bow seems better, if not entirely cured. This morning I decided to tackle the concealed fixings for the neck. I drilled a hole in the body using a 4mm bit and then the last cm into the heel of the neck, a 3mm. I then used a spare screw to thread the holes (in the neck) and make it easier to get the proper fixing in. Here's a pic

Having scoured YouTube last night, I think I know what to do.. I'm going to attempt to correct the bow today using heat and clamps. More news and pics anon.

Bloody hell. What a mess. They want the thick end of three hundred notes for that? It would be a cold day in hell before I parted with that much cheddar for a horlicks like this. Interestingly though, and speaking to Bassassins point about whether the high action (on mine) was a production defect or a subsequent development, this seems to have got it too, and it looks like they've attempted at least, to remediate the issue by lowereing the bridge. Maybe it was a dodgy batch?

As you can see, in theory, once its all back together, the cut should be pretty much invisible. I've done a test stringing (without drilling secondary fixings for the neck or doing any sanding as yet) and the action is much more sensible, however, there does seem to be a bow of about 1.2mm (at the 7th fret- the worst spot) in the neck. The 1.2mm is with the rod slack. Cranking the truss rod does not seem to make a difference. I seem to recall bow can be corrected using clamps and a rigid thing to clamp the neck too. Any ideas on the process folks?