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

[edwardofhuncote]

Nicely done (once again), Greg!

Is the pencil in a hole drilled into the end of your arc-casting tool?  What is the height of the graphite from the fingerboard?

Peter

Yessir, a good ol' replaceable Number 2 Pencil. I have a giant box of them in my other workbench my other Grand-daddy left me from his shop. I use these until there's almost nothing left, then saw the eraser end off, and they fit into my homemade arc-casting tool.

You've asked a good question again, Coz, and I almost need to illustrate to answer it fully. Lemee try.

In short, the tool only gets you close, because the fingerboard extension of a bass (or in this case, cello) often sweeps up from the point at which the neck joins the body of the instrument. See, it's a completely unsupported plank from there on. Sometimes they twist, sometimes (rarely) they dip down, but most of the time, they sweep up. So my little invention is made almost the length of this fingerboard extension, and can be shimmed on either end so that the arc it casts offsets the strings from the fingerboard of a bass about 1 cm. I adjust down or up from that for each string. For steel strings, I typically set the G at 7-9mm of clearance, and the E at 9-11mm. A lot of that is player preference too. I can get them lower if needed, but that fingerboard better be darn-skippy true.


Thanks All. I'm having a pretty good time up there lately. I set the neck for Honeytone #27 up with the shell to cure last night, and sent some pictures to my Ol' Man. I'm going to reassemble the pot this week, and next weekend, the Founder and CEO of Honeytone Banjo Works is coming over to put it back in-service. I'll try to get some action shots of Dad at work... it's been a while since he was excited about doing any shopwork. Hope this is a new chapter. 

[edwardofhuncote]

Honeytone Banjo #27's pot is reassembled, and ready for the neck to set into the coordinator rods. I'm mounting the tuning pegs on it tonight/tomorrow, and leaving the final restringing and setup to my Dad.


I am just about done with this wild-eyed project too... this is that Martin DC-X2 I converted to a 4-string Dreadnought scale bass. I still have a couple minor tweaks to make to the nut and saddle to get the action right but... [mad-scientist voice]


IT WORKS, IT WORKS!!! 😄

[cozmik_cowboy]

Well, I have yet to see anything to dampen my resolve to rob enough liquor stores to someday commission a Honeytone banjitar; loveky work, Greg.

Peter

[edwardofhuncote]

Pops called in sick today, so I've been working on an upright bass for another customer.


Here are a couple pictures of the Martin DC-X2e bass conversion. It's been a fun project. I may do another sometime. Maybe a 000 or OM. I learned a lot from this one.

[pauldo]

Ooh.
How does that Martin bass sound?

[edwardofhuncote]

I'm liking what I have experienced so far, Paul.

It actually does have quite a surprising amount of volume, compared to the Ibanez parlor bass I had, just played acoustically, and plugged-in it sounds very good. Even Fishman's lowend stuff is pretty good anymore. These are very simple electronics... a volume and a tone pot that are mounted rather discreetly just inside the soundhole. There is a side-mounted battery box on the lower bout for a 9v battery, that also incorporates the 1/4" jack, and this whole assembly can be removed and serviced or replaced easily with just a small Phillips screwdriver. It's well thought-out. The undersaddle piezo is... well... it sounds about like they do.

If I had to give a fair review, these D'Addario strings make it sound much more guitar-like than bass-like... much more phosphor-bronze 'zing', so I may eventually look for a more mellow flatwound string that is compatible. I read that LaBella makes such a thing. I don't necessarily hate these rounds ... they do have their merits. They definitely cut. And the tension, as I thought, is insignificant so the instrument is not in any danger.

I plugged up and played along with some tunes last night, using my F-1X / Crown / Mesa-Boogie rig, and tried a couple pedals, a Chorus and an Acoustic Simulator. Yeah, it's fun. It'll feed back if you push it crazy loud, but the acoustic nature comes through, unmistakably.

[edwardofhuncote]

This weekend's Scroll Shop project;

Was supposed to be me and the Ol' Man finishing up a banjo. He had to make a trip to the Doc-in-a-Box (this is his condescending description for the Urgent Care place closest to him and my Mom, where they are frequent flyers) so #27 can cool out for another week.

I love posting about my friends here in Virginia. This bass I've been setting up belongs to my mentor and friend of almost 35 years. When I first started played bass in the late 1980's, he was the best there was around here, and in my opinion, he still is.

Mark 'Rabbit' Ramsey came out of U.S. Air Force as a medic shortly after Operation Desert Storm, came back home and went to school to become a Registered Nurse. These days, he treats geriatric mental patients. We bonded over a mutual admiration for the bass-playing of several bluegrass and jazz luminaries, and Rabbit could easily channel a couple of them. I would follow him closely for several years, and study every note he played, every nuance. He would patiently show me anything. Often I'd get to sub for him. When I moved to Nashville in 1996 to play full-time, he replaced me with the band I'd been in. We played so much alike, it was a perfect fit. Some of that band is still together. Over the years, Rabbit and me kinda' became the first-call guys for any bluegrass gigs... and we'd often pass off to each other the ones we couldn't do, and keep bandleaders happy. It was great being able to be two places at once! I can't remember now what year it was he asked me to come play bass with his neices and nephews, so he could move to guitar, as they were working on a project... not everybody wants to go play with little kids. You might remember the show America's Got Talent... those kids went all the way to the final round. Three of them play professionally now. We just got to watch the whole thing happen.

So I've just been doing a boring old setup job on a 1978 Englehardt bass. New bridge and soundpost, planed the fingerboard, restrung. Rabbit got it new in '79, he told me. It survived a car wreck and a house fire. The firefighters accidentally knocked it over and broke the pegbox off while dousing the flames. He had the fiddler in their band fix it, who coincidentally learned shadetree instrument repair from the same guy I did. He also carved this old bridge, with the grain turned the wrong way. Small world. 

It's an unusual snowy day here in Virginia. Enjoy the pictures now that my rambling post is done.

[pauldo]

Why is there twine wrapped in the old sound post?

[cozmik_cowboy]

Why is there twine wrapped in the old sound post?

Overwound for a hotter signal? 

Peter

[pauldo]

😂

[edwardofhuncote]

Yeah, that does look a bit mysterious, don't it?

Twine, or cord around a soundpost was a means of retrieving a toppled post, or I've heard, you could use a string to stand one up. I use a Herdim soundpost setter tool, an S-shaped metal tool that holds the post while it's inserted through the F-holes, then the other end of the setter is used to push/pull/tap the post to the final desired position. https://gollihurmusic.com/parts-repair-and-upgrades/soundposts-setter-tools/upright-bass-sound-post-setter-tool/ There are other kinds available... this is just what I like. I also have a retriever tool... works like a retractable claw.

These dowels are a very loose friction fit... ideally, when the soundpost is correctly fit, only pressure from the strings pushing the top down holds it in place.

[edwardofhuncote]

I dropped off #27 with my Dad on the way home from work. He's made up a new sheet of serial number labels, and will stick one in it after he finishes tweaking everything to perfection this week.

I found this picture of me showing off our newest banjo to my Grandmother during a visit in 2010. Looks like it was almost done the first time here. She was fascinated by the side inlays in the resonator.

And here's some last looks at the finished project.

[edwardofhuncote]

After nightmarish week in WaterWorld, I was up here in the Scroll Shop this morning, sitting in my chair... ruminating... solving little wooden problems that have nothing to do with water or the vast myriad of human and mechanical elements that must be managed to put enough of it down the pipes every day to put fires out and make it so people can drink it. Counting the days.

Morning's first light fell on my workbench, and my next side-project; another old Kay cello, a Model 75 this time, in 4/4-size. Needs a little more work than the other one did, but will be just as stable. 

I'm thinking about making it a 28" scale bass... and maybe adding some electronics.

[cozmik_cowboy]

Far out; resurrecting old violincellos is Good Work!  I look forward to the next update.

Peter (who is currently reading a novel set during the Napoleonic Wars, which has repeated references to a character playing the 'cello, and so was moved to use the full name)

[edwardofhuncote]

Quitting a little bit early today... (I want to sneak in some playing time this afternoon...) Here's the updates;

I got the cello fingerboard leveled up and polished out. Same way I do with basses, but takes less effort. I use a good, sturdy block with adhesive-backed sandpaper, two different grits, and block plane the grooves and any severe bow out of it. This one didn't have much. Followed by some radiused sanding blocks to keep the curvature in it. Once I've got it true, (this will sound strange) I wet-sand the raw rosewood board with 1000-grit, and blot dry, then buff with 0000 steel wool. Later on, it will receive a coat of lemon oil then Minwax finishing wax, a petroleum-based paste wax I use on raw wood... gives it an almost glass-like gloss. Darkens up too as it fills pores of rosewood or walnut. Pretty sure this is Brazilian rosewood. It sure smells like it. Not a very pretty piece, but it worked fine for a fingerboard. We'll do all that stuff later... lots of work left to do. I made a shopping list for my friends at International Violin Co.

A good stream of bass work is going on in here too. I don't bother to write-up every re-stringing job, but this one is noteworthy... and a pretty big job too. The bass is a 1940 Kay Orchestra Model. She had a loose bass bar, hence a collapsed top, and a host of other issues. I'd been putting it off until there was time. I've pressed the top back out with a moist heat compress, and reglued the bass bar. Now fixing some loose veneer around the edges of the top. There's more inside the body to straighten out.

My Series I awaits me!