Alembic Guitars Club
Connecting => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: edwardofhuncote on April 16, 2017, 07:20:47 AM
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...brought to you by this old German bass.
One of the local music stores I do repair/setup work for picked up four upright basses last Summer. They were all in pretty rough shape after being stored in an attic for who-knows-how-long, but three of them were fairly easy fixes. This particular guy didn't really want to put anything into them other than get them playable, and let a new owner pick out strings and bridge, etc. (usually adds a couple hundred dollars to a bill)
So this one is next up. It's major problem is a badly back-bowed neck. The fingerboard is a replacement, some kind of ebony or rosewood. (I swear it looks like snakewood to me... and doesn't smell like rosewood or ebony) Anyway, it's a nice board, and I hope to reuse it, but I have to sand some 'scoop' into it, which is kinda' tricky biz-niss. I've been stalling off the job long enough for the solid parts to absorb some moisture and hopefully swell up, saving me some scrubbing.
It has a couple old repairs that seem stable, so other than that bowed neck, this one is only in need of strings, bridge, new soundpost and setup. Already got somebody interested in it. ;D
More later. 8)
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Boy that neck looks beautiful. The neck joint? Not so much.
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It ain't pretty Paul, but it's a stable repair. Looks like a very old dowelling job, just covered up with some dark varnish. It doesn't move at all. 8)
But when I took the tuning machines off to polish them, I found an old pegbox repair that had begun to let go. I got it all glued and clamped here. Luckily, it was a nice clean break... I was able to work some glue all the way in, and find ways to put positive clamping pressure to each break. I may glue in some reinforcement wood inside the pegbox too. May just get by without... we'll see. ::)
The nickel-plated brass tuners polished up nice. These are nearly identical to the brass plates on my bass. I'd bet a buck this bass came from the same factory as mine.
The fingerboard is done. I'll post the pics this evening after I resize them. ;)
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Next installment; trueing up the fingerboard...
Nothing too complicated about this job, but it has to be right. I use a good old-fashioned sanding beam (18" long) with two different grits of adhesive sandpaper on either side. I use chalk to put a hatch pattern on the bare wood... this helps you see you're keeping the sanding even.
Rosewood (or whatever this stuff is) loads up the sandpaper pretty quick. This wire brush and scraper are good for clearing it out. One other thing - you don't want to breathe this dust. I wear earplugs too. See how the shiny spots start showing... this fingerboard was a mess. Keep checking with a good straight edge, especially in the first position... there needs to be the smallest degree of relief there. That's where the shorter radiused sanding block comes in handy. The power sanders take out any scoring left by the sanding beam.
At this point, the fingerboard has a nice, smooth, dull sheen. Most importantly, no high or low spots. ;)
Will pick it up here tomorrow.
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Man, that is one seriously yummy fingerboard!! I'm picturing one like that on a Spoiler body BTC with Rippled Satin. (http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=7974.0)
The coloring looks like Macassar ebony to me, but the grain pores do look more rosewood.
Peter
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It could be Macassar Coz... it smells more like ebony than rosewood, but I agree, it looks way too grainy. It's Tree-wood! ;D
Seriously - whatever it is, it dressed up nice. And the pegbox repair looked good when I pulled the clamps off too. I was on a roll and worked on it most of the night... I'll post the pics afterwhile. ;)
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Fascinating. (You do nice work, by the way!)
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Now that the fingerboard's playing surface is in shape, time to shine it up...
Crazy as it may sound, I have found that wet-sanding with 600-grit is a very good way to polish very hard woods. Don't need to drown it, just enough water to lube the paper. After it dries, follow with a good buffing using 0000 steel wool. You should have a nice dull sheen now.
I use a little Old English to replenish the wood, then apply a coat of an oil-based finishing wax. (I use Minwax, but there are others) I also use this for bare wood necks. Will cover that later. ;)
Can't believe nobody's noticed the can in the windowsill... ;D
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CANNED HAGGIS!!!! I like haggis, but that just seems wrong...it kinda screams I AM YOUR NEXT FOOD POISONING EPISODE!!!...please tell me this does not exist in Scotland and is some kind of misguided abomination created by a homesick Scot...
nice work, by the way...Tony.
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I've never tried them Tony... I can't even imagine a circumstance where I would. :P My good friends and musical partners the McAllisters gave them to me as a house-warming gift after moving here some years ago, I assume as some inside-Scottish prank on my English lineage. I've thought many times about how to properly return the 'gag'. ;D
I cut a new bridge and soundpost for the bass last night, and re-strung it with some LaBella 'Super-Nil' Nylons. (per the customer request... I despise those things)
The good news is, it plays great, and the thing actually sounds darn good too, nice and boomy. But I ran into some problems... it has a rattle that sounds internal. I swear it sounds like the bass bar is loose, but I can see with a mirror that it isn't. Must be a seam separation or something. I was too frustrated to fool with it anymore, so I quit for the night. >:(
Here's pictures of the repaired pegbox, and the brown Sharpie pen that covers a multitude of sins.
And the polished-up tuning machines looked nice re-mounted. They actually cover most of the repair anyway.
I've posted how a bridge and soundpost are cut before, but here's another look at that. Don't remember if I mentioned before, I like to pencil-in some graphite to the bridge slots. It helps burnish the wood a bit, and keeps the strings from binding up. (I do the same thing at the nut, for the same reason) ;)
And the aforementioned strings that might as well be weed-eater twine... I can't stand seeing a sloppy pegbox, so I take a few extra minutes to trim, singe, and wax the silks before winding them over the rollers. Hot candle wax is the ticket. ;)
Almost forgot - the foot-rest/endpin... fitted with a new rubber chair tip. Best quarter you ever spent to keep your bass from sticking in the mud. 8)
More later, when I figure out what in the world is rattling in this thing. ::)
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very nice. very interested in more details about how you go about doing the 'bridge fit'.
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Excellent! And to think I feel accomplished when I switch an electric to '50s Gibson wiring..........
Peter
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very nice. very interested in more details about how you go about doing the 'bridge fit'.
Here ya' go Paul: http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=16223.msg163657#msg163657
I realized reading through that thread, I repeat myself a lot, but at least it's consistent. ;D
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Excellent! And to think I feel accomplished when I switch an electric to '50s Gibson wiring..........
Peter
Coz, I am a DISASTER with a soldering iron. Seriously, I'm an iceberg looking for the Titanic... it's embarrassing. ::)
Thank goodness Alembics have modular connectors. ;)
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Thanks Gregory, so I understand. When you remove the strings and Bridge, the sound post 'should' remain in place by itself?
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Thanks Gregory, so I understand. When you remove the strings and Bridge, the sound post 'should' remain in place by itself?
Sometimes they will, but ideally they are held in place by string tension, so once that tension is relieved, they tend to topple easily. Unless someone has glued them. (I've even found them nailed in...)
See where I wrote on the masking tape in red pen "SP"? That's a reference point for the approximate location of the soundpost, relative to where the treble foot of the bridge goes. When I'm fitting a bridge, I will usually put the soundpost close to where I think it should be... reason: when installed that moves the top outward in the smallest degree. Sometimes that little bit is enough to foul up the contact of foot to top though.
It's the definition of a fragile balance. :)
I'm getting ready to head back up there, hopefully figure out what is causing that rattle.
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A-ha! Um-hum... that'll rattle. :D
Found a good, old-fashioned seam separation in the treble side lower bout. I kept tapping and listening, until finally, there it was. Worked the seam knife in, opened it up some more, and then worked some glue in. Clamped it up, and the rattle is gone.
Maybe, maybe, maybe, I got away with an easy one this time. I was dreading having to pull the top off to chase out a ghost. :-\
If it's good tomorrow, I have a prospective buyer coming by. (and a commi$$ion headed my way) ;D
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Nice work!
What's the reason for dating the bridge cut? Is it just a record keeping tradition?
Thanks for bring us into your shop (though it's a little tight ;) ).
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Nice work!
What's the reason for dating the bridge cut? Is it just a record keeping tradition?
Thanks for bring us into your shop (though it's a little tight ;) ).
Yep... just a tradition, but with a function. Bridges, -like soundposts, and even bass bars- actually need to be changed every so many years. Dating them helps keep track of when they were last swapped out... like that little static sticker they put on your windshield at the oil-change shop. ;) Every now and then, I'll find a really old one... the oldest one I can remember was dated Oct. 1922, and initialed Z.R.
Yeah, my shop is in a mess right now... I'll probably do a clean-up day soon. Kinda' helps me triage what comes next when I move the pile around in there! ;D
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<sigh>
More little buzzes and rattles going on with this one folks. I think it's just not been under string tension for so long, and the years of hot/dry storage didn't help... might be a while before it settles down. I was very much hoping to get this one out of the shop this week, but that's the way the mop flops sometimes. ::)
More later...
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Just to finish out the thread, after repairing a couple more seam separations that popped open on this old bass, it finally held. The guy who was interested in it wound up buying it after I got all the little buzzes and rattles worked out, and I got to put a little bonus $ into the vintage Series I kitty. 8)
I was pleasantly surprised at the sound this one had too... keeping expectations realistic is often the key for a 100 year-old shop project, but this old bass sounded fantastic.
I didn't take time to document the 'speed-neck' treatment, as I really needed to move this one on, but I'll do that another time. ;)