The Scroll Shop (Ed of H's Shop Thread)

[pauldo]

I gotta' say...you do some really nice work, Greg!

Seriously nice.
I would love to be a fly on the wall and watch you do your magic.
The neck reshaping sounds easy but can tell that you are at a Craftsman level.

[David Houck]

That fingerboard does look nice!

[edwardofhuncote]

Lots of progress made on the King bass this week... I might even be ready to string it up in a couple days, so it'll seem like I've been sandbagging you guys, but I've just been too busy to post daily updates. I did snap a few pictures of the high points along the way though. I worked in the shop every night this week, only pulling off this project long enough to do a couple custom pickguards for these new Eastman guitars Fret Mill Music got in.

This week's work has mostly involved glueing up both the neck, and tail blocks. Both had failed on this one, an especially common problem for some reason on American Standard bassses. For a litttle background, basses, (and the smaller viols) have spruce or willow blocks at the dovetail neck joint and down where the endpin or in the case of an upright bass, the footrest is set. It's critical they not be broken, cracked, or loose in the slightest degree. This tailblock was just coming unglued. The neckblock is another story. We'll get to that.

I have found a lot of strange things in basses... odd hardware, money, fortune cookie proverbs, even an 8-track cassette of The Eagles. Not much surprises me anymore. But I will admit to being amused by this one. Somebody repurposed a drumstick for a footrest! I was working around the tailblock setting up to reglue it, and I was going to tap the footrest/endpin out anyway... it was a big snarled-up mess of electrical tape and rubber I was going to have to deal with later anyway, but my eyes kept thinking that shape was odd... then I tapped it out of there. Yep... there ya' go. File that one away!

Anyway, nothing special or complicated here... just work in some Elmers Titebond where it's come loose, and use cam clamps with two flat cauls, squeeze until glue comes back out. That block will be good for another 80 years. (did I tell you all, this King dates to 1938 production year?) Serial number 949 is handwritten and stamped inside. *look right under the word "Ohio" for the inked stamp on the label... it's very faded, but right there.

Next up, the neck block. It was a disaster, but I feel pretty good about the fix.

[elwoodblue]

That stick looks pretty old. I'm picturing a happy bassist at a gig and a drummer looking for that other stick 




 it would cool to make  string doorbell with it,
or maybe pair it with a little drum.
 
Well done. Looking forward to the next episode.

[edwardofhuncote]

Bonus Coffee-break post... here's one of the two Eastman guitars I made a faux-tortoise pickguard for this week. For whatever reason, Eastman doesn't ship this upper-end line of guitars with pickguards. I had some of this older 'Tortoloid' stuff squirreled away that Ken thought looked kinda' nice on these Adirondack spruce tops. (it looks terrible until you peel the blue backed adhesive off! Green Tortoise?!) It takes me about an hour to shape one, cut the inside radius to fit the rosette, and then bevel the edge for a finished look.

This is the E-60 M, kind of a cross between a Martin J-M body and an OM. The other one I did was for the matching Dreadnought.

[pauldo]

Agreed, the drumstick is actually a pretty cool McGyver fix.   

[edwardofhuncote]

Part Two: glueing up the neck block... and not that it matters, but chronologically, this was all happening at about the same time as the tailblock post from yesterday.

This was one of those fixes that I really didn't know how it was going to go. I had to improvise on the fly, so apologies for the lack of detail. You have to work pretty fast with epoxy, and so I didn't have time to stop for a lot of pictures, but I did get before/after shots.

The short of it is this; in most cases, the neck of a bass is secured to the body by a tapered dovetail joint in this spruce block that's glued to the ribs (sides) right at the very top of the body. In this case, the neck is still glued into the block, but the block (like the tailblock) has come loose from the sides, allowing the neck joint to yaw and pitch, breaking out the layers of laminate underneath. (I suspect that this happened at the same time as one of the three broken necks this old bass has suffered) As you can see, there's quite a void here to fill, and not an easy way to clamp without any kind of press. To fill this up, I used slow-set (20-min) epoxy mixed with a scoop of the fine dust from the belt sander as a binder, and poured it into the seam, guiding the emulsion where it needed to go with a discarded guitar string end. (I think it was a light gauge E .052) Then, using some high-impact packing foam and deep-jaw cam clamp, I was able to apply some pressure with an improvised caul. Not much squeeze-out here, I just want to hold stuff tight for a half-hour or so for the epoxy to set. (this is about as seat-of-the-pants as it gets!)  I just used a squeeze of some regular old Titebond to secure the block itself back to the rib. Thank goodness for the return to conventionality.

Finally, the clamps came off, and after the clean-up, I feel pretty confident this neck block will hold. I spent yesterday glueing up a few loose laminations around the edges of the top, and I'll be glueing the top back on the King bass this afternoon. We're getting closer to being back in one piece on this one!

[growlypants]

Fascinating.  I really enjoy reading, and even better, seeing all this work, although I can't imagine doing it myself.  (Oh, yeah!  That must be the clamp!). Thanks for enlightening me a bit!

[pauldo]

Agreed.  Really enjoying this... thanks for sharing.

Is there an inlay on the finger board?

[edwardofhuncote]

Is there an inlay on the finger board?

Not yet, but there will be... sort of. 

[teaser]

[pauldo]

Hmmm.  Shoulder/ lag bolt in there?

[edwardofhuncote]

You guessed it, Paul. This poor old bass had a hardware store in it. I've already doweled up the hole, and filled with epoxy and rosewood filler dust, but to make a more presentable repair, I'll be inlaying a rosewood patch. I have some scraps that are an exact color match... I just need to pick out a piece that approximates the grain around the plug as closely as possible. Of course everything will be flushed up too. It'll be seen, but not noticed, or at least, that's the goal. I'm excited about the challenge... haven't done any wood-on-wood inlay work in a while. 

Here's the current status in progression.

[elwoodblue]

Your scrap piece is a great match...that's gonna look fine,
thx for the pics.

[edwardofhuncote]

It'll be a little bit until the next installment, but happy to report the biggest part of this old bass is back together... there are still several issues to be addressed before time for re-stringing, it's well on the way to a full recovery and return to duty.

I spent a couple hours off and on yesterday, cleaning up glue. The neckblock turned out to be a nice, solid fix. I sanded and dusted out the rest of the inside of the body, and fixed a couple more loose layers of laminate, then prepped the top to go back on, then finally... it was time for the clamps. You really have to have everything laying exactly in place before starting this job. Once you apply the glue, get busy!

Back again soon with some of the aforementioned detail work... got a neurology appointment tomorrow morning, bloodwork again Wednesday, then I gotta' get on a couple jobs for Fret Mill Music. Plus there's the small matter of a [new guitar for me] at hand, but the King Mor-Tone is looking good for a test-drive maybe next week. 

Y'all come back now, ya' hear? 

[cozmik_cowboy]

[new guitar for me]

Oh?  Do tell!

And a wizardly job on that doghouse, my friend.

Peter