=The Warwick Thumb Club=

joebar said:
so I pulled the trigger on the thumb 5 NT
the serial number indicates that it was built in January 87
I wanted to check the truss rod nut before I bought it, so I unscrewed the cover and I was shocked; it appeared that the nut had never been turned! it moved freely in both directions. after tapping the neck and listening for noises, I handed over the cash.
I brought it home and immediately tore it down and proceeded to do extensive cleaning and polishing. treated the FB to probably its first coat of oil in 25 years. turned out beautiful. steel wooled the frets. soaked the bridge in penetrating oil. scraped the human sludge off the PU's with my finger nail-gross...
amazingly the bass is 100% original and functioning. all it needs is one barrel for the JAN, and a few allen screws for a couple of the bridge saddles.
It was almost unrecognizable when I was done. I am not going to refinish it; it looks pretty darn good.
I brought it to rehearsal last night and it was glorious thru my rig.
my friend, who is a ww fanatic too, said that it is easily the best sounding bass I have ever owned and I agree. it is a heavy beast but balances well and reeks of quality
I have pics on facebook under the warwick thumb club if you want to see it.
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This post is useless without pics!
Especially for such a rarity! What serial No you have ? I used to own J 100 87
 
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Florin said:
This post is useless without pics!
Especially for such a rarity! What serial No you have ? I used to own J 100 87
Click to expand...
the serial number is very hard to read.
it is a four digit-A 187 is all that is barely legible.
 
Oh noes!!! what a beautiful bass! Interesting, it has the 2 piece bridge! Mine was 87 or 86, my memory seems to have issues :-)

But if it is A 187 - that's the serial, and then last 2 digits are the year, but you canot see them. So maybe it is from 88. Does it have the carved headstock, with plastic bushings?

Great bass!
 
Florin said:
Oh noes!!! what a beautiful bass! Interesting, it has the 2 piece bridge! Mine was 87 or 86, my memory seems to have issues :-)

But if it is A 187 - that's the serial, and then last 2 digits are the year, but you canot see them. So maybe it is from 88. Does it have the carved headstock, with plastic bushings?

Great bass!
Click to expand...

all I can see are the 4 digits.
carved headstock? on the rear of the HS where the tuners are there is a carved area-is that what you mean?
plastic bushings on the tuners?
 
yes, on the back is carved, and in front there are some large plastic bushings, to mask the angled tuners.
 
Are there major differences between the two thumbs? Sound, feel?
 
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My new mate since yesterday, a 1996 NT 5-string. Only the frets could use a polish, the rest of the bass is like new. Any recommendations for the selection of fresh strings? Or any "don'ts"?

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Also the action seems to be very high. 3 mm at the third fret, more than 4 mm over the whole rest of the fretboard. The former owner told me that the bass was always checked professionally at Musik Produktiv. I don't need the lowest action, but this seems to me a bit too high.
 
Hardy said:
View attachment 16619

My new mate since yesterday, a 1996 NT 5-string. Only the frets could use a polish, the rest of Bass is like new. Any recommendations for the selection of fresh strings? Or any "don'ts"?
Click to expand...

Beautiful. Gorgeous. No words to truly describe the Thumb.
I went for .040 to .125 Elixirs and I'm super happy after a week of tweaking truss rod, nut and bridge to stop 5th string from rattling.

A good mate of ours here might say you can't go for less than a .135 on the 5th but I'm good. With a little additional neck relief I managed a razor-thin action.
 
hi hardy,

congrats for having the tightest b-string and a beautiful bass at the same! musik produktiv is here in switzerland more of a shop that wants sell intruments as much, cheap and fast as they can. for the employees there are some cool cats but i've been never a big fan of how they maintain their instruments.
do yourself a favour and take a half or a full hour time in setting up this beauty. she'll be like new believe me and everything will be fine.

cheers,
herbie
 
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