1972 Gibson EB-3 restoration

I have had this bass for about three years and I am just now getting around to restoring it to its former 'Glory'.

This is going to be a long term project. i will try to post some pictures and let you all in the on obstacles i face as I work on this bass.
Early 70's EB-3, brutally modified:


Work to do:

Remove old pickups, patch holes in body and pickup route, repair finish, install correct Gibby pickups and circuit with 4-way switch. Oh and I almost forgot- Plane the fingerboard and do a total fret job with mandolin frets.

This bass arrived with the Bartolini P-bass pickup in the neck position and a Seymour Duncan J bass PU in the bridge position which was in the hacked up pickup route held in by mosonite and rubber cement. It wasn't pretty.
In the picture you are seeing a generic chrome pickup that I put in the bridge position just to test the bass. The JB pickup bit the dust when I removed it. There is also a mysterious hole next to the pickup switch that had another pickup switch in it! I removed that when I decided to clean up the existing controls on the bass.

A major headache with this restoration is finding the correct EB-3 bridge pickup. Anybody have one that they can spare?

I'll post more when I have more.

-bassman

Last edited by bassman on Fri Apr 29, 2011 1:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Bassman, interesting project and certainly plenty to do. I had a 1963 EBO bass. Wish I still had it. Why are you using mandolin frets?-- Darwin

I am using mandolin frets because I am interested in their effect on the intonation of the bass.
I have a 1960 Precision bass and it is fretted with very thin, original fret wire and the bass intonates beautifully.

In discussing this with a local repairman, he suggested the mandolin fret wire. If it doesn't work out I will re-fret with vintage fret wire.

Thanks Bassman, that makes sense to me.-- Darwin.

At least the uh... bridge looks in good shape *looks at the PuP hackjob*

This is going to be an interesting project. I'm watching with interest Bassman!

2012 UPDATE- I finally got the bridge pickup and it's mounting ring. I bought a junk bass just to get the tuners from it for this bass.
They are Schaller M4s and they have been hard to find on the used market.

I have taken the whole bass apart and I am having second thoughts about going with the stock pickup arrangement.
I may use the Bartolini P-bass pickup for a while and install the correct tuners.
I liked the sound of this bass with the modded pickups.It was just done so poorly that I have to fix it.

why would the type of fretwire effect the intonation? the center of the fret is still the same. where the frets are cut is the determining factor isn't it? couldn't be that the p bass you have intonates beautifully because of better fret placement? the only way i can imagine this would help if someone pushes really hard, but that is a technique issue.

[/why would the type of fretwire effect the intonation? the center of the fret is still the same. where the frets are cut is the determining factor isn't it? couldn't be that the p bass you have intonates beautifully because of better fret placement? the only way i can imagine this would help if someone pushes really hard, but that is a technique issue.

That is a fair question, Louis and I would agree that it shouldn't make a difference as I think about it, but it definitely does make a difference when put into practice.

BTW- there is no way that the fret placement is better on an old bass that new one created with CNC machines. The templates in 1960 were not as accurate as what modern cnc equipment can create today, of course provided that the CNC machine is properly programmed.

The thin fret wire just interacts better with a bass string. I think that like a guitarist wants fat frets for his thin electric guitar strings, a bass string is more accurately stopped by a thinner fret than what is usually standard on basses.

I am actually re assembling this bass to test out the proper tuners that I just got for it. I just want to play it for awhile. The fret job is on hold. -Bassman

Last edited by bassman on Mon Mar 19, 2012 4:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[BTW- there is no way that the fret placement is better on an old bass that new one created with CNC machines. The templates in 1960 were not as accurate as what modern cnc equipment can create today, of course provided that the CNC machine is properly programmed.

You might be surprised! Remember this country got to the moon in that era without CNC. Instrument makers (in the mechanical sense not necessarily musical) and machinists are pretty amazing people that can make high-precision stuff with ruler, caliper, and micrometers. The fretboard template and/or jig used in the '60 might just be one of those pieces.

- Jos

[BTW- there is no way that the fret placement is better on an old bass that new one created with CNC machines. The templates in 1960 were not as accurate as what modern cnc equipment can create today, of course provided that the CNC machine is properly programmed.

You might be surprised! Remember this country got to the moon in that era without CNC. Instrument makers (in the mechanical sense not necessarily musical) and machinists are pretty amazing people that can make high-precision stuff with ruler, caliper, and micrometers. The fretboard template and/or jig used in the '60 might just be one of those pieces.

- Jos

that, and it could be that one particular bass is more accurate, kind of by accident. i agree that overall they would be less consistent on accuracy, but there is no reason that some of them could come out totally perfect.

[/why would the type of fretwire effect the intonation? the center of the fret is still the same. where the frets are cut is the determining factor isn't it? couldn't be that the p bass you have intonates beautifully because of better fret placement? the only way i can imagine this would help if someone pushes really hard, but that is a technique issue.quote]

That is a fair question, Louis and I would agree that it shouldn't make a difference as I think about it, but it definitely does make a difference when put into practice.

BTW- there is no way that the fret placement is better on an old bass that new one created with CNC machines. The templates in 1960 were not as accurate as what modern cnc equipment can create today, of course provided that the CNC machine is properly programmed.

The thin fret wire just interacts better with a bass string. I think that like a guitarist wants fat frets for his thin electric guitar strings, a bass string is more accurately stopped by a thinner fret than what is usually standard on basses.

I am actually re assembling this bass to test out the proper tuners that I just got for it. I just want to play it for awhile. The fret job is on hold. -Bassman

i understand that is what you think, but i am not convinced that it is the fretwire that makes that difference. you mentioned a sample size of one that worked so perfect, and you attributed it to the fretwire, but could it be that it is something else that makes it work so well? i agree that overall accuracy wasn't as good, but there is no reason that an individual instrument couldn't come out with perfect intonation, even if by accident, from that era. i think further examining the possibilities, looking at the science of it would make more sense that deciding "this is how it works" with rather limited data. not all guitarists want fat frets, and while i understand your point, i don't necessarily agree that your logic is correct on this one.
you assert that is how it works, but could you explain the reason, the thinking behind it? i am not saying you are wrong, i am just saying i only see an assertion, not evidence. i would be interested in the latter.

As in many things musical, a lot of what I am going to say is subjective because I have no way of accurately measuring what I hear and experience when playing a musical instrument.

The fret wire thickness/ thinness is demonstrated by my 1960 Fender Precision bass with thin vintage fret wire intonating better than my other Fender Precision basses with wider fret wire. It is not that the intonation is not correct on the basses with wide frets. Its just not as accurate or "sweet" and I am not the only bass player to notice this phenomenon.
You may be able to crown wide frets, but the crowns may not be dead center and the frets will wear the crown down before the fret wears out. All of this affects intonation all over the bass neck.

Lee Sklar had his old mainstay Franken P-bass done with mandolin fret wire for this reason. Billy Shehan in his workshops talks about fretting his upper range of his fingerboards in mandolin fretwire because it intonates better.

I am not alone in this observation.

Billy Shehan in his workshops talks about fretting his upper range of his fingerboards in mandolin fretwire because it intonates better.

+1


Cheers,

Will

As in many things musical, a lot of what I am going to say is subjective because I have no way of accurately measuring what I hear and experience when playing a musical instrument.

The fret wire thickness/ thinness is demonstrated by my 1960 Fender Precision bass with thin vintage fret wire intonating better than my other Fender Precision basses with wider fret wire. It is not that the intonation is not correct on the basses with wide frets. Its just not as accurate or "sweet" and I am not the only bass player to notice this phenomenon.
You may be able to crown wide frets, but the crowns may not be dead center and the frets will wear the crown down before the fret wears out. All of this affects intonation all over the bass neck.

Lee Sklar had his old mainstay Franken P-bass done with mandolin fret wire for this reason. Billy Shehan in his workshops talks about fretting his upper range of his fingerboards in mandolin fretwire because it intonates better.

I am not alone in this observation.

a well crowned fret is crowned dead center, and a fret needs to be dressed many times in its lifetime, of course crown will wear before the fret wears out. i recrown twice a year in most cases. as far as several people observing something, that does not mean it is the right explanation or conclusion, it has happened many times when people have drawn conclusions and it turned out to be something else. there is a reason why something works, and making an assertion, or saying others have observed something as well, is not the same as an explanation.

Wow. Who cares; let it go... Peace.

Last edited by willross on Thu Feb 16, 2012 9:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

Louis- The fret wire is the variable factor in this comparison. Unless you are crowning wide frets with a PLEK machine, there is no way all crowns are dead center. I have not played a Plekked instrument, so I don't have that experience, but I have played basses with thin fret wire and I like them, so I want to try them on this bass. There is nothing else for me to say.

I'm with you on this, Bill. That wide-flat fret-wire that Gibson used in the late '60s and '70s is miserable to level and crown accurately. And the instruments that have it usually will NOT play in tune. My Gibson ES-150DCN and my Les Paul '55 Special Reissue had that wire, and it was a PITA.

There's a reason why Gibson doesn't use it anymore.

Waiting for pics....

Bill

Louis- The fret wire is the variable factor in this comparison. Unless you are crowning wide frets with a PLEK machine, there is no way all crowns are dead center. I have not played a Plekked instrument, so I don't have that experience, but I have played basses with thin fret wire and I like them, so I want to try them on this bass. There is nothing else for me to say.

i am not saying you are wrong to try it. it is perfectly fine, and if you are happy for it i am happy for you. you don't have to justify using it, to me this was a purely theoretical discussion.

I am posting some older pictures because I have only changed the tuners on this bass (Schaller M4s's) and it looks essentially the same. I did clean it up a bit since these shots were taken.
Here is a back view of the bass:


I also changed the pickup switch since the one pictured fell apart when it was taken off of the bass.
The new switch only allows for one pickup to work at a time. I thought it was a different configuration switch, but it was what I had in my tool box.
I also installed some new oversized strap buttons.

I also shielded the entire control cavity and I placed a scrap piece of wood under the treble pickup to support it.


New acquisitions are a proper EB-3 treble pickup with a pickup ring and a Gibson control cavity cover, now properly shielded and installed.

The project continues. -Bassman