Gibson Ripper rescue

[BigRedX]

That's looking fantastic.

Can't wait to see how it's going to turn out.

[Myke]

Oh man!

[tonybassplayer]

Looking very nice.

Very inspiring.

[Gust0o]

[discreet]

Can't wait to see it finished.

[EssentialTension]

Very nice, good job.

[xilddx]

Oh gawd, I don't dig that colour, but on that it looks fantastic.

Great restoration thread so far!

[Billy Apple]

What paints and lacquer are you using?

[neepheid]

Well it's not me that's using them, but it's Manchester's finest: [url="http://www.manchesterguitartech.co.uk/shop/"]http://www.manchesterguitartech.co.uk/shop/[/url]

[Toasted]

[IMG]http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18k3v1ua5q246gif/ku-medium.gif[/IMG]

Nice

[NancyJohnson]

Any updates? I bought another Thunderbird and have done the usual upgrades - I was thinking about this project when I was swapping out the strap lugs.
P

[Gust0o]

Neep's taking a quick break. I think he's tired of people telling him he needs a P-bass

[Bassman Rich]

I love the look of rippers (my 74 natural gets a run out every now and then), great project, looking forward to the finished pics.

[merlin]

great so far,want to see more,thinks I hooked on this build

[spinynorman]

How did I miss this for nearly a year? There will be more pictures, won't there? You can't tease us like this.

[neepheid]

Sorry for the lack of updates. Refinish is ongoing, no more shiny pics of that at the moment. Tonight I made a mounting bracket for the choke coil. I took a PC blanking plate:



And after some drilling, bending, cutting and filing I ended up with this:



This idea is taken from the later Rippers (early ones had a small bracket soldered to the side of the pot), this one basically acts as a washer on the pot shaft. So with it attached it looks like this:





And the choke will sit like this, with an M5 machine screw straight through the whole thing and bolted to the bracket (don't have one at the moment)





Also tided up the pots - some of them had wires soldered to them and tags soldered to the casings which needed freeing up. I'm going to do all the wiring soon.

[discreet]

Excellent recycling and metalwork.

[neepheid]

Wee bit of work tonight - mounted the choke coil and did some soldering:

[neepheid]

All wired up and no place to go (yet) - just the pickups and the bridge wire to add but I think I'll wait until assembly time for that.

[Thunderbird]

Good job top banana

[BigRedX]

Is that a "proper" Gibson choke or did you wind it yourself?

[Billy Apple]

Without wanting to sound un-cool and that, what does the choke do?

Apart from getting it to fire up on a frosty morning

[neepheid]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1391547495' post='2358523']
Is that a "proper" Gibson choke or did you wind it yourself?
[/quote]

Neither Curtis Novak wound it for me - http://www.curtisnovak.com/pickups/EB-Choke.shtml

[neepheid]

[quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1391548272' post='2358541']
Without wanting to sound un-cool and that, what does the choke do?

Apart from getting it to fire up on a frosty morning
[/quote]

The choke (inductor) is part of an LC circuit (inductor/capacitor) which acts as a mid filter. The mid pot will progressively scoop out mids but I think I read somewhere that it also alters the impedance of the circuit so the effect it has on the sound isn't as clear cut as that. It'll be fun finding out

[spinynorman]

I'm interested in how this turns out. I have an old shape Ripper that I think must be 1974. When I got through the black paint someone had sprayed over everything, I found the body was Alder, which was a surprise. It's good though, lovely grain and 2lbs lighter than the 1978 maple one.