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Searcy's Project eBays Grabber


Searcy

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This looks to be a great fun project!

 

...and FWIW I'd go white with the white h'stock but a tortoise-shell 'guard to go with the rosewood 'board..........

 

So there!..........[flapper]

 

Looking forward to the updates!

 

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It's funny the little things which stick so firmly in the memory and, for me, that particular cartoon is one of them.

Even now, 40-odd years on from when I first read the Peanuts books, I still occasionally meet life's small troubles with a cry of "Curse You, Red Baron!"...lol!

 

P.

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Ack! I would never own a blue guitar... or bass. The are evil and should all be destroyed! I like white with a slight relic for this one.

 

So far me and Nikki Sixx are the only ones that like the maltese crosses. I think that's why I got the neck so cheep but I DO like them and they are very different.

 

Just so everyone knows these are the three basses that are coming together to make this one ThunderGrabber \ VictoryGrabber.

 

 

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In the beginning... there was nothing. And then Leo said "let there be bass" and there was the Precision bass. It had one single coil pickup. And it was righteous.

Leo nailed the sh!t out of it, got it perfect the first time.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

She's just about done here. Thought you might like to see that finished bass.

 

As I collected the parts the concept grew in my mind. Once it was clear that I was not going to find a deal on an actual Grabber neck any time soon I felt it was OK to get a little creative with the build. In my search for a compatible 20 fret, bolt on, 24" scale neck that would look ok for this bass I started off looking for an Epiphone Ripper neck. When that proved to be more rare than an actually Grabber neck I started paying attention to these Epiphone ThunderBird necks that kept popping up in my searches. It was important to me to leave the vintage grabber body as unmolested as possible. The think neck heel dimensions of the T bird nack meant I wouldn't need to rout the neck pocket. So I went down to Guitar Center to try out the Epiphone ThunderBird bass and see how I liked the neck.

 

 

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The neck is extreamly thin. Not unlike a Fender Jazz Bass neck. After some jamming I decided it was worth a try given the ridiculously low price the Epi neck were selling for on Ebay.

 

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I really like the black and white colors.

 

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One thing I never liked about any of the Bill Lawrence Gibson basses were the bridges. Awkward to play and impossible to set up well, I originally thought of using a BadAss prodge that I already had in the shop. But then I noticed how nice the Gibson Victory Bass bridges (Made by schaller) were and decided to go with that. This would allow me to keep the bass 100% Gibson (or Gibson subsidiaries) and still be cool.

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  • 2 months later...

Ultimately the real reason I decided that I wanted a grabber for myself was the pick up. It has a real mid range bark that the ripper just can't make. It's somewhere between a P bass and a Richenbacher 4001 in tone. I've actually got a Richenbacher 4001 pick up in my shop that I'm going to rewind and try out in this base at some point. But for now I'm pretty happy with the original pick up. For some reason people seem to think that these or humbucking pickups. They aren't. There Bill Lawrence design single coils.

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  • 2 years later...

I did manage to get an actual Grabber neck with this round of trading. The problem is that the truss rod is broke. So I'm going to try my hand at replacing one. Something I have not tried before.

 

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Weapon of choice.

 

 

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