Plan Zero
Active Member
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2017
- Messages
- 255
- Reaction score
- 141
I picked up a husk off eBay for an unbelievable deal. So unbelievable to me there's no other explanation than it was surely meant to be. I've been looking for a vintage Gibson "find" for many years, scouring antique, thrift and pawn shops, classified ads, garage sales, etc and I used to have an Epiphone EB-0 about 20 years ago. Never imagined I'd find this on eBay. Not sure why the seller didn't auction this, just sold it outright. He could have easily got double what I paid. It was only listed for 30 minutes and had 52 watchers when I pulled the trigger. I figured I'd ask questions later.
A husk is perfect for me. I love projects and modding everything so this gives me free reign to do what I want and make this bass one of a kind. Almost every EB-0 or EB-3 I've seen looks the same and boring to me.
Everything I'm doing is reversible, just in case I decide to do a period correct restore somewhere down the line. For now, it's new and improved parts.
First thing first, clean thoroughly and glue the neck on:
A word about the neck, it had a very professional headstock repair and refinish at some point. The slot head bass only existed for two years because it is utterly ridiculous. Gibsons already have headstock breakage problems. Let's put slots in to make it weaker then add tuners that face backwards so it's guaranteed to break if you lay it down too hard. The break/repair resembles an upside down scarf joint without a complete "U". Serial # was then etched into the base of the neck after the refinish. Furthermore, this bass has a nice volute which technically didn't appear until after the slot head in 72. I realize SG guitars got the volute in 69 but the basses didn't start until later. The volute didn't help headstock breaks, just made the breaks nicer looking. Unfortunately a lot of unprofessional volute headstock repairs exist which make the truss rod useless due to glue in the cavity. I'm hoping I don't have to do any truss rod adjustments just in case.
I'm surmising that this bass was a 71 transition model because of this very unique feature. I have yet to see an image of a slot head with volute.



A husk is perfect for me. I love projects and modding everything so this gives me free reign to do what I want and make this bass one of a kind. Almost every EB-0 or EB-3 I've seen looks the same and boring to me.
Everything I'm doing is reversible, just in case I decide to do a period correct restore somewhere down the line. For now, it's new and improved parts.
First thing first, clean thoroughly and glue the neck on:


A word about the neck, it had a very professional headstock repair and refinish at some point. The slot head bass only existed for two years because it is utterly ridiculous. Gibsons already have headstock breakage problems. Let's put slots in to make it weaker then add tuners that face backwards so it's guaranteed to break if you lay it down too hard. The break/repair resembles an upside down scarf joint without a complete "U". Serial # was then etched into the base of the neck after the refinish. Furthermore, this bass has a nice volute which technically didn't appear until after the slot head in 72. I realize SG guitars got the volute in 69 but the basses didn't start until later. The volute didn't help headstock breaks, just made the breaks nicer looking. Unfortunately a lot of unprofessional volute headstock repairs exist which make the truss rod useless due to glue in the cavity. I'm hoping I don't have to do any truss rod adjustments just in case.
I'm surmising that this bass was a 71 transition model because of this very unique feature. I have yet to see an image of a slot head with volute.


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