Birdswing

darn I thought I had a lead. 

my plan is to give it a few months and then just move the parts on to someone who can make use of them.

Sitting in my cupboard isn't a great life for the parts. 

On 17/01/2024 at 09:38, MoonBassAlpha said:

Back in the late 70s a mate had a defretted Melody Ripper like this an put a DiMarzio model 1 in it,  sounded pretty good! Never had the cash to do it to mine. 

he doesn't still have the old pickup does he 😛

On 24/12/2023 at 19:46, Bassassin said:

 

So, was it assembled into a working bass when you got it? Do you have a pic?

 

As far as I know the original Ibby Studios are really heavy - wonder if the decision to graft everything on to what I'd guess is a much lighter body was to do with that?

 

I think I'd do a bit of body routing to space the pickups sensibly, make a Grabber-ish scratchplate to cover the mess & put the bridge somewhere it would intonate properly. Dunno what you'd call it though - an Iblody Grabdio?

On 16/01/2024 at 19:50, MoonBassAlpha said:

Looks like it should have had the sliding pickup .

Would be a fun project to try and get that up and running again!

On 16/01/2024 at 20:42, Pea Turgh said:

Cut your own pickguard, Ki0gon passive loom and the bits you have - sorted!

I've thought about the own pickguard, the issue with the neck and body for me is where the bridge needs to be because it's a 24 fretted neck, it's kinda weird as is at the moment. need to rout out a considerable amount of the body to get it where I'd like it.

I've been hunting parts and it's not going well ha. 

I do like the put the basses back to the studio and grabber original states but it's looking like an expensive and hens toothing mission atm sadly.

It was as in the photos when I got received it, gent that just wanted rid (he had hundreds of other projects all guitar) it had been out of commission for several years

the neck isn't grafted on it's been screwed in place, they added a shim to the neck and the under the bridge and when I added strings the action was pretty nice.

the grapper body is pretty weighty as well, I should seperate them and get the weight but reckoning 5/6lbs

grabber/studio got to be "the stabber"

5 hours ago, Delberthot said:

Here are pictures of a Melody Grabber fretless I had a few years back for reference. As MoonBassAlpha mentioned, it did look more like pine than maple but the routs look pretty much identical

 

 

That's a nice looking instrument, I always wanted a grabber (huge greenday fan as a lad) but never got near before this body. I do like the idea of fixing it up but it could take many a year

2 hours ago, Bassassin said:

Looking at the routing, definitely an Italian-made Melody body. I think all the MIJ copies had 3-point post mounted bridges.

 

The Ibanez Studio neck & components are an absolute steal for £25 - there's a big collector/restorer community out there who'd fall over their wallets for rare, out-of-production parts like those!

 

Wonder what on earth happened to the original body?

 

 

 

 

Absolutely no Idea, the bridge was mounted well up the body and the two pickups actually fit in the groove tightly.

"out of their wallets" I knew they were great basses that's why I went over, the original images were a bit dark so didn't realise it was the frankenbass until I arrived. I wonder if parting it out may be the best option, looking at two projects is costly and melody/grabber parts are like hens teeth it seems.

I thought the body was potentially a Melody but I actually have no idea what it may have been from originally and not sure how to find out. 

Best suggestion I had so far was to seperate the two basses and rebuild a grabber and an Ibanez Studio, great idea but not sure my wallet or skills would achieve it

Hi peoples, 

I have just picked up a £25 Project bass and it's quite the thing, from what I can work out the neck, bridge and pickups electronics are from an Ibanez Studio Bass from the 70s however the body is not. I've thrown a few pictures on here and it appears from the routing it appears to from a Gibson Grabber style bassyou can see the faint outline of that style of pickguard as well. 

I have no idea what I've got myself into with this project atm and a little extra info or advice would be greatly appreciated. 

Motorhead take up the top 10 loudest gigs, but Motorhead at the Barrowlands was beyond anything I have experienced

This is my single cut Letts, it's a monster

4 minutes ago, alembic1989 said:

That’s really cool.

Are the controls vol/vol?

Is it 34” scale?

It is indeed 34" and the controls are the simple vol/vol

It's a really bonnie thing but I probably spent more time looking at it than playing it ha

For sale my beautiful Jon Letts single cut 6 string bass guitar, this bass is in excellent condition.