I've heard fiddles referred to colloquially as "The Devil's Box"... but I can't claim to have ever shared a stage with anyone who might be a possession of the actual Dark One. We had one fiddler who was so reliably late to gigs from his other job that he got fired. (his other job was a professional bass fisherman, and he actually ended up making a bloomin' fortune at it, but that's another story) Oh, what the heck... this guy:
https://missilebaits.com/ monster fiddler, good drummer, fair steel-guitar player, and a fine human being. Just don't look for dude at soundcheck... it wasn't happening. We still play together every now and then.
So anyway, the Kay is done, and back at the Fret Mill.
If you remember, I had to replace a missing scroll/volute. I had a matched pair, from the fine folks at Gollihur Music, so I could have done both, but I figured the pegbox was rough enough that matching that plum-brown and distressing it a bit would be close enough. This bass wasn't going to be getting any best-in-show ribbons anyway, but I think the cover went okay. After sanding and shaping, (they come machine-carved pretty close, but require some final fitting) I used some alcohol-based dye, followed by a Minwax stain pen, then brushed some tung oil over to give a bit of varnish gloss and to seal it. Finally, glue in place and touch up around. Can you tell which is which? Yeah... but you can't see both sides at once.
Of course I had to replace the little rubber stopper on the endpin, and dress up the metal down there too. Strung with a new set of Eurosonic Lights, a llittle lemon Pledge wipedown, and this Kay M1 was ready for Black Friday and Small Biz Saturday.
