neepheid

Optimistic to say the least.

If it went for peanuts then I'd love to restore it. But it won't, despite its lack of verifiable age and absolutely dreadful condition. It's VINTAGE, you see. Honestly, some people would buy a vintage chocolate teapot, just because it was vintage.

[quote name='rodl2005' post='521555' date='Jun 23 2009, 11:18 AM']BEAUTIFUL!!!!!! I LOVE the BLACK-ness!!!!!!!! WOW!!! that COKE works a treat eh??? I just got a '77 G-3 - your post on it's pics thread led me here. - Is yours an ALDER body one like mine? I s'pose I should do the 'clean-up' thang too.... oh ONE day I s'pose.. Any tips I should know B4 I embark on this?????[/quote] I couldn't say for sure on the body wood - black hides a multitude of sins! According to the excellent Gibson bass site at [url="http://www.flyguitars.com/gibson/bass/"]http://www.flyguitars.com/gibson/bass/[/url] there's no definite dates about the change in body wood on the G-3 section, but in the Ripper section it says that it was maple in 75, alder was used 75-76, then back on the maple from 77. Whether or not this applies to G-3s and Grabbers, it doesn't say. Tips? Do it in stages and separate containers - bridge, tuners, other stuff (neckplate, screws etc.). You need to completely dismantle assembled parts like the bridge and the tuners so doing them separately makes it easier to keep track of the various parts. No need to buy proper Coca-cola or Pepsi - some cheap supermarket own brand saver stuff will suffice. 2L of proper coke - £1-£2, supermarket own - 17p. I used diet - I figured sugar would make things stickier. Those results were obtained by a couple of hours soaking - I changed the coke after an hour. You might need longer depending on how badly tarnished the parts are. Wash off the coke well. DRY the parts well before you reassemble.

[quote name='chenzo_1' post='520723' date='Jun 22 2009, 01:38 PM']yeah, think i may go with some darkstars! now i just need to find the cash!!! Would it increase the value of the bass?[/quote] Not really, it's all non-original as far as the collector is concerned. You'd best keep those mudbuckers if you do replace them, so if you come to sell the RD on then you'd make more money selling the Darkstars separately (or keep them for another project).

I ended up selling both an EB-3 and an EB-0. I tried everything to try and like them - Hipshot Supertone bridge, DiMarzio Model One pickup, Hipshot Ultralite tuners, but it didn't make any difference. Necks were too thin for my tastes.

Similar story to Count Bassy - bought my first bass back in 2003 and it was a pretty ornament until 2008. I too wish I had started sooner. Not until I was 32 did I have my first gig. Loving it now though, so I'm determined to get good and be the best bass player I can be (with the most surprisingly good gear )

Oh, to save you looking back, here is the photo of the original problem:

And after a little tidying up (600 > 1000 > 1500 grit sanding then some safe cut), this is it: It was never going to be invisible, but the gap is closed and it is smooth to the touch. I'm happy enough with the results, being as it is a fixup rather than a complete solution (which I guess would involve some refinishing work).

[quote name='Buzz' post='519040' date='Jun 20 2009, 02:01 AM']Oooh, that's nice, I've only seen those basses in the normal yellow colour, that's quite different.[/quote] Mine's black (or ebony as Gibson called it):

I got some syringes and needles. Amazingly I managed to squeeze glue through a 25 gauge needle, it takes a fair while of sustained pressure on the plunger, but it eventually comes out. I got the needle in the gap in a couple of places in each side of the neck and squished glue in until I saw glue at the crack. Then I clamped it to hell. A fair bit squished out, so I was confident that I had got enough in there. Well, the clamps came off tonight and the gap did not reopen. I reglued on the nut which had come off, strung her up and it's still holding firm. All that I'm waiting for now is the glue to dry on the small sliver of finished neck wood which came off (handily giving me easy access to the crack). I'll try and tidy up the cracks in the finish and then we should be done.

Welcome to the G-3 club

No major hand/finger injuries here, but once when I was routing out a control cavity in some zebrano, the router bit caught on the wood and the router bounced out of the hole and here's me holding it up in the air, thankfully pointing away from me, hardly daring to breathe until the bit stopped spinning. Scary moment!

I meant to post this last week but I forgot. Got a reply back from Traben regarding the rather constricted supply at the moment: "Like the USA, many companies have closed in China also. We are looking for quality factories and this has delayed many models. I will send this to our international department and they can inform the UK distributor when and what models will be available between now and the end of summer." So it seems that they are having some difficulty finding factories in the far east who will make these basses to their liking. They're still listed on the Traben website, so I presume they're still keen to get them going.

You've just been unlucky, that's all. I know where you're coming from - I need people around me who are at least as dedicated to the band as I am or I'd get really hacked off. Life sometimes gets in the way, rehearsals sometimes need to be cancelled, but it should be the exception, not the norm. Ultimately, if it's not right for you, get out - but only of the band, not the business of bass as a whole!

Cocktail sticks are made of stronger wood than matches and are better for this particular fix.

Here's my Hartke HA3500 on top of an Ashdown ABM 4x10, with the suitably pornarific Gibson G-3 in front:

It's amazing how much quicker you get on with the right tools. Got fret nippers from StewMac. Well worth the wait. That's the frets in. I put the bass together to check out the frets and surprisingly for a first fret job there were few issues. I just have to file the ends down now.

Because entries in this thread are useless without pics: Fecker Imprecision: Epiphone Les Paul (Not So) Standard:

Haven't made a will yet, so I guess my wife would get them.

I love doing this. Currently in my arsenal are: [b]Fecker Imprecision[/b]: The neck and body of a Chinese Squier Precision (Affinity) I had lying around. From top to bottom I did the following: 1) Reamed out the tuner holes and fitted full size tuners instead of the enclosed cheapy things 2) Applied a custom logo (Fecker logo and IMPRECISION BASS in the late 70's style) 3) Fitted a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder pup 4) Rewired it with CTS pots and Orange Drop cap 5) Filled and redrilled the pickguard screwholes for a standard Fender Mex pattern 6) Fitted a Badass II 7) Shim the neck to get the action down low enough Result? A nice growly P with probably the lowest action of all my basses [b]Epiphone Les Paul (Not So) Standard[/b]: A beautiful black model with cream binding and a carved top. Fell in love with the looks, wasn't so impressed with the sound. So I swapped the pickups out for EMG-HB (active P in a humbucker housing basically) and added an EMG-BQC 3-band EQ. Also gave it it's "gold tooth" - I found the G saddle sat too low when all the other strings were fine and being the Gibson 3 point bridge, you can only raise/lower either side of the bridge, not each individual saddle. So I stole a D saddle out of a gold bridge I had lying around which is the nearly the same height as the D saddle in my bridge and swapped them. Result - correct curvature of strings, and a "gold tooth". To finish off the sophisticated look, I obtained some East knobs from Alan at ACG. Previous mention goes to my [b]Squier Bronco[/b] which got a similar treatment to the Fecker Imprecision, namely: 1) Again, reamed out the tuner holes and fitted regular sized tuners 2) Swapped the ugly thick 1 ply white pickguard for a sweet looking black/white/black one 3) Fitted a lipstick pickup 4) Changed the useless 2 saddle bridge for a 4 saddle one 5) Modified the body for through body stringing I sold it a while back because it wasn't getting played enough to justify it hanging around. I really enjoy doing this to "budget" basses (I never understood this terminology - surely most people have a budget when they go bass shopping, it might be a grand?) - I love exceeding people's expectations when they get down and play these basses. Maybe it's a "championing the underdog" thing. Yes, in some cases I've spent more on mods than the initial obtaining of the instrument, but I build for fun and I always intend to keep my modded basses.

Isn't this what the wiki is for? Oh, never mind