Doing Things Wrong

Cherry Fenderbird

For those of you who thought my Stratocaster bass was an abomination, feast your eyes on this. The MusicmanBird. ThunderJazzRay. FenderManBird. I just call it FenderBird #2.

Specs:

  • Body: Thunderbird, cherry, Danish oil finish - someone's abandoned project from eBay
  • Neck: Mighty Mite Jazz bass, 34" maple
  • Logos: inkjet-printed waterslide decals under satin lacquer - hobby shop
  • Tuners, neck plate, misc hardware: GFS
  • Pickup: MusicMan-style, alnico, 2.5k/coil, 4-wire - Guitar Jones ?
  • Bridge: MusicMan-style cheap Chinese knockoff, top-strung - eBay
  • Pickguards & control cover: scrap material from old project
  • Fasteners: bright stainless steel - marine supplies store
  • Knobs: Precision bass dome style, Rickenbacker layout - parts box
  • Electronics: Guitar Fuel SBK-2 active bass & treble + 4-way pickup switch & dead-battery passive switch
  • Strings: d'Addario 50-105 roundwound

As oriented in the picture, the controls are:

  • North: volume, pull for passive output (dead battery)
  • East: bass 12db boost/cut, center detent
  • South: treble 12db boost/cut, center detent
  • West: pickup mode, 4-way rotary switch

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This is based on an older design I made from an even older piece of phenolic, which you can see behind. Phenolic is very stiff and strong, good for tooling, but you can't see through it. If you look at that one, you can see the giant hole I made for vision. I was barely able to adapt it to the small router, but the vision hole was useless.