Feline built John Entwistle Fender-bird bass project

FelineGuitars

We have had a customer commission a couple of basses and supply a number of the parts to use .

Back in the early 1970s the Who's John Entwistle had luthier Peter Cook mke a few basses that became known as Fender-birds.

Entwistle has I guess a large or growing number of broken Gibson Thunderbird basses and they pulled all the hardware from these to use. Our aim was to recreate that. 

We could have made the necks as well but the customer wanted to supply a couple of P bass necks to keep the look right.

One of the hardest factors was trying to get the paint colour for what looks to be a fiesta red colour but in fact is a 1970s VW paint colour called Kasan Red.

This is what turned out .

We do have a working prototype of our own that could become a for sale project :

PhilKing

What pickups did you use on them Jon?  They look great, I always thought that it was the best Idea that made a stupidly fragile bass work really well.  My 63 TBird IV has had the headstock broken twice (both before I got it).  The necks are really narrow (feels less than my Jazz) and they have a huge headstock, set at an angle, with a truss rod going though them, so I'm not sure how Gibson ever expected them to last.  Are they bolt on necks?

FelineGuitars

PhilKing said:

What pickups did you use on them Jon?  They look great, I always thought that it was the best Idea that made a stupidly fragile bass work really well.  My 63 TBird IV has had the headstock broken twice (both before I got it).  The necks are really narrow (feels less than my Jazz) and they have a huge headstock, set at an angle, with a truss rod going though them, so I'm not sure how Gibson ever expected them to last.  Are they bolt on necks?

They were just the cheap ones that the customer supplied . I did discuss with Oil City about winding some from scratch, but for this one we used the supplied ones.

Schnozz

Dig it.

tsj93

very nice work. Cataldo basses do these too, they use https://www.thunderbuckerranch.com/ pickups FYI

Emiel

Wonderful, wonderful. Always loved Entwistle's choice for basses, especially the '70s era. Thunderbirds, Fenderbirds, the Alembics. What a player.

@Jon, can we get to hear it?

FelineGuitars

Emiel said:

Wonderful, wonderful. Always loved Entwistle's choice for basses, especially the '70s era. Thunderbirds, Fenderbirds, the Alembics. What a player.

@Jon, can we get to hear it?

No clips available yet but you'll like this previous Entwistle inspired  beast we built

Emiel

Just amazing! If I ever get a Who tribute starting, I would definitely lead the bass player to you 

prowla

Well, that's rather good!

FelineGuitars

A couple more arty shots of these 

Andyjr1515

Lovely