A Limey

Hi Guys,I was pointed in this direction by Chowderboots

I'm from Plymouth,U.K,41 years old,father of 3 and have an unnatural interest in B.C.Rich instruments,I own 11,10 basses and 1 G**tar

One of my basses is a 1985 USA made Ironbird bass with quilted maple wings and a Maple thru neck,it has a Kahler 2400 trem on it,I bought it,knowing full well that the truss rod nut is snapped clean off and the neck is forward bowing (Without strings),I have to wait for my Luthier to finish rebuilding my 1994 USA Widow bass,before he will start to repair the Ironbird.

So,I have not had a chance to try the trem out yet,but I did buy a load of spares for it,including a new chrome arm,a black Cam,new bearings (Didn't know the new cam came with the bearings!) and the spring on the stop screw,and 2 new stop screws.

I replaced the Cam and arm as the threads had gone,the bass has been played HARD,as the frets are toast,but MK 1 Ironbirds are RARE,so I just had to have it

Lorne

Greetings and welcome! That's quite a collection there!

The red bass looks a lot like one that our friend John Gallagher of Raven used to play back in the 80's. Way cool!

Great to see ya here dude.


Sweet bass too!

Welcome, dude!

Welcome to the insane asylum awesome board filled with perfectly normal people...

Really digging the collection. Especially those 8 string Biches (even though you've strung them with 4)

Kugelspot wrote:

Welcome to the insane asylum awesome board filled with perfectly normal people...

Really digging the collection. Especially those 8 string Biches (even though you've strung them with 4)

Thanks,I string the 8's as 4's as the 8 string sound is only novel for about 2 days,after that it gets boring

I also only buy the 8 string versions as it gives an excuse for the god aweful rear design of the bass

I also have a 1987 USA B.C.Rich Thru neck ST bass,a 1995 U.S.A. B.C.Rich Widow bass,a 1988 U.S.A. B.C.Rich Gunslinger Bass and a Snakeskin N.J.Series B.C.Rich Warlock bass

man I wish I had enough money to buy the black LEFTY IronBird on ebay

a righty one would be too uncomfortable to use flipped over

yes sir I play inverted string style


POINTY BASSES FOREVER!!!

welcome!

nice b.c. riches! i like the bitches too. always wanted one. i keep saving my pennies.

fret wear ... yuk! i got a discontinued ibanez with a kahler that i love thats awaiting a refret job. i got a gazillion projects in my new house that need to get done first.

the last rebuild i did, the p bass, i put a warmoth neck with stainless frets on it, so i never hafta worry about doing a fretjob ever again on this one. yes, they do wear, but not as fast and yes, they do sound and feel different ... but i use this bass all the time now and i dig it. its not right for all situations so i use 2 regularly ... one hot rod p and one fairly standard washburn.

just info to consider when getting a fretjob.

Thatnks,Stainless sounds like a nice idea,but I really like the Dunlop 6105 fretwire that's on these basses

I used to have an Ibanez Roadstar II bass,the Bird's Eye maple twin pick up one,never should have sold it ,I also had an Ibanez RG 560,but I had to sell that to get a Rabbit hutch for the Rabbit I found i n my garden

Lorne wrote:

Thatnks,Stainless sounds like a nice idea,but I really like the Dunlop 6105 fretwire that's on these basses

I used to have an Ibanez Roadstar II bass,the Bird's Eye maple twin pick up one,never should have sold it ,I also had an Ibanez RG 560,but I had to sell that to get a Rabbit hutch for the Rabbit I found i n my garden

Pity! The Roadstar IIs are awesome basses. I love the consistently comfortable/skinny necks! The pickups are also loud and punchy--just how I like em.

Chowderboots wrote:

Lorne wrote:

Thatnks,Stainless sounds like a nice idea,but I really like the Dunlop 6105 fretwire that's on these basses

I used to have an Ibanez Roadstar II bass,the Bird's Eye maple twin pick up one,never should have sold it ,I also had an Ibanez RG 560,but I had to sell that to get a Rabbit hutch for the Rabbit I found i n my garden

Pity! The Roadstar IIs are awesome basses. I love the consistently comfortable/skinny necks! The pickups are also loud and punchy--just how I like em.

Yep,maddening thing is,I cannot remember selling the bass,lending it to anybody or having it stolen,so I don't know what happened to it,I do know I miss it though

Thankfully, they can be had for pretty cheap on eBay and elsewhere. $300-500 isn't too bad for how much fun they are to play.

Yeah,I'll get another one day,first I have to pay my Luthier $2000 for the work he's doing to my Widow and the work he will be doing to my Ironbird,then I have other stuff I want to get back,such as a Yamaha RBX 6JM

Cool 8 strings, they go for a pretty penny now a days.

Barklessdog wrote:

Cool 8 strings, they go for a pretty penny now a days.

Thanks,the one on the left of the Ironbird is a 1979 one,the first year they made the basses,I sold this one,and another '79 in 1992,this one returned 2006ish and I know where the other one is

The one on the right is a Supreme,one of approx only 20 made,bound ebony fretboard and headstock

Whilst waiting to get my Widow back,in order for the Ironbird to go in for work,I got a flightcase for the '79 Bich,exact same one I had sold in 1993,still has the leopardskin interior LOL

Also got given a 1991 Ibanez RG 570 which had been in a housefire and needed cleaning and some parts,and the B.C.Rich ST III I bought about 2 years ago,finally left my friends house in Poland yesterday

Since it went through a housefire, I'd be really interested to see some before and after pictures of your Ibanez, Lorne.

Unfortunately I cleaned it up before taking any pictues,suffice to say,the frets were all Black and corroded,so not having any steel wool available,I cleaned them with Brasso,the machineheads and toplock were toast,the fire brigade had dumped several thousand gallons of water over it.The fretboard was severely dirty and in need of constant feeding with lemon oil,until my luthier told me to use olive oil instead,stopped the whiteness showing up immediately.The body was also filthy,took a lot of elbow grease
The trem was absolutely fine,just needed an arm

So I bought a toplock,some Gotoh tuners (in cosmo as Black is not available),an Edge arm,the spring cavity cover and screws and some strings

Remarkable it survived,considering the inside of the house had to be rebuilt,a Patrick Eggle Berlin Pro also survived (Was ina case) and a Washburn superstrat of some type.
Slight discolouration on the headstock from the heat,neck is straight,no bowing


Before parts

Forgot to say,electrics were stripped out and cleaned,also cleaned out the cavities,put back together and ALL the electrics worked absolutley fine

After parts

New (VERY expensive) Black nut



New Gotoh Tuners (Had to go with Cosmo Black,as I can't find new Black ones anywhere)



New Trem arm



New Trem Spring cavity cover



It's loaded with D'addario EXL 120 (9-42) strings

I'll bet that's a great axe now. I really like the Edge trems, although I hate setting them up! Looks like it cleaned up pretty well.

WOW! Awesome save!

Thanks,it plays great and the edge didn't need much work at all

Chowderboots wrote:

I really like the Edge trems, although I hate setting them up!

jesus h. christ don't remind me, i had a look at an edge 3 trem that was giving my friend hell, no matter what i did i couldn't stop this thing from f******g up, it's like it was physically incapable of sitting on the knife edge properly. Put me off them for a while...

Heheheh I'm not alone, then! My friend has a Xyphos--sick guitar, but it took months and months of seemingly constant adjustment to get the bloody Edge to float properly. I guess it works great now, though.

Lorne, what you did with that yellow RG is inspiring. Since I modded my friend's Ibby with dual Super Distortions, I've had the stock D-activators sitting around. He was thinking about eBaying them, but I'm a little reluctant. When DiMarzios fall into my lap, I'm not exactly itching to get rid of them, you know? I think I'll ask him if I can keep them so I can find a cheap, dual humbuggy project guitar to Frankenstein, based around those pickups.

I don't blame you,DiMarzio's are bloody expensive LOL

I go the other way with P+J bass pick ups,I generally swap them with people for EMG's,I don't go much on the DiMarzio Jazz pick up

Lorne wrote:

I don't blame you,DiMarzio's are bloody expensive LOL

I go the other way with P+J bass pick ups,I generally swap them with people for EMG's,I don't go much on the DiMarzio Jazz pick up

I like the sound of the D-Activators and it's something that I want to explore more, so I want them to stick around especially. They aren't Super Ds, but they aren't bad, either.

I concur--I have one bass with Dimarzio P/Js and that's enough for me. That set gives a really warm, deep tone with flats. I like the DiMarzio Ps well enough, but I only really enjoy Jazz pickups when they're in a set on a J bass. That's why I'm looking into modifying a couple basses with P/X2N combinations. Apart from the insane output in series or parallel, when an X2N is split, it has a great P bass sound, maybe a little twangier and I wonder how it would sound in combination with a DiMarzio Model P.

I had one of the original Yamaha Attitude LTD basses when they came out in the early 90's,the DiMarzio that was in the neck position was awesome, it was a Model One,BIG pick up though

My mom's Dean Pace EUB that never gets played has a Model One at the bridge of all places. One of these days, it'll find its way onto one of my projects.

Cool

Another cool thing,this week I got a phone call from my Polish friend,my USA B.C.Rich ST III is FINALLY on it's way to me,it's only been in his house for 2 years,waiting for him to put it in a box

Wow that'll be worth the wait when you get it!

I'd like it if it looked like this:

.

amimbari wrote:

I'd like it if it looked like this:

.

I had a blue crackle Gunslinger once,but no,the ST III looks like this