Toepfer
Good Vibe Sponsor
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2015
- Messages
- 277
- Reaction score
- 332
- Age
- 56
- Real Name
- Pepe
Yesterday the Frankenthumb arrived.
I bought it because I realy love the early 5 string necks with 26 frets (thanks to Schlobodan I got two 5 string streamers from that period with that neck). And a Thumb NT 5 for 750€ sounded like a real bargain. It's a 86 Thumb NT 5 - Serial G 015
The seller told me again, and again that the mod was done by that famous luthier and that this guy knows best how a bass should sound and so on.
I already started a complete overhaul, because it needs a lot of tlc. (Sorry I started taking pictures today, because it was dark last night, when it arrived)
If these routings habe been done by an experienced luthier - this luthier would not get a second chance to touch one of my beasses ever again! Two broken screws still in the wood, still pencil marks all over the bass, no sanding the routings and so on - you can see all that in the pictures below.
So now the big question:
What to do with it?
Is it worth saving - YES!
Does it play nice - Hell Yes (it was set up realy bad - but thats an easy fix)
Will it ever look realy nice again, without adding some color - No
My plans at the moment is to talk to two of my friends (ona a carpenter, the other a boat builder) on what can be done to these routings and what chances there are to get it fixed up to paint it black or some crazy colour. So we will see.
One more thing - They didn't just add the P-Pickup but changed both - so the J doesn't fit the old (original) Warwick routings. The EMG J from my old 4 String streamer (was an 86 4 String) fits perfect.
So here are some pictures. Unfortunately no pictures when everything was still assembled - but you can see what I'm talking about.
Any ideas?
I bought it because I realy love the early 5 string necks with 26 frets (thanks to Schlobodan I got two 5 string streamers from that period with that neck). And a Thumb NT 5 for 750€ sounded like a real bargain. It's a 86 Thumb NT 5 - Serial G 015
The seller told me again, and again that the mod was done by that famous luthier and that this guy knows best how a bass should sound and so on.
I already started a complete overhaul, because it needs a lot of tlc. (Sorry I started taking pictures today, because it was dark last night, when it arrived)
If these routings habe been done by an experienced luthier - this luthier would not get a second chance to touch one of my beasses ever again! Two broken screws still in the wood, still pencil marks all over the bass, no sanding the routings and so on - you can see all that in the pictures below.
So now the big question:
What to do with it?
Is it worth saving - YES!
Does it play nice - Hell Yes (it was set up realy bad - but thats an easy fix)
Will it ever look realy nice again, without adding some color - No
My plans at the moment is to talk to two of my friends (ona a carpenter, the other a boat builder) on what can be done to these routings and what chances there are to get it fixed up to paint it black or some crazy colour. So we will see.
One more thing - They didn't just add the P-Pickup but changed both - so the J doesn't fit the old (original) Warwick routings. The EMG J from my old 4 String streamer (was an 86 4 String) fits perfect.
So here are some pictures. Unfortunately no pictures when everything was still assembled - but you can see what I'm talking about.
Any ideas?
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