Peghead repair, refret...fun stuff with my 77.

[fivestringdan]

I glued up the peghead of my 77 Alembic today. Everything looked good when clamped so I'm hoping it bonds well enough for me to play the bass again. I'll be taking photos as well but I haven't figured out how to resize them yet so will be posted later.

I'm also going to refret the bass. It really needed it when I got it. I am SO happy I bought way too much EVO Gold fret wire before they stopped production. I'm saving it now for my instruments. I don't know if I'll have to make a new nut either. I maybe able to shim it if the wire is too high.

Hopefully will be mostly done tomorrow so I can play this thing again!

[fivestringdan]

I think this will work. Found a way to resize the pictures. Yay! Oddly there was a button to resize the pictures when you open them. I'm sorry for all the pain I've caused to members trying to view my oversized photo links!
Onto this mornings report;

Clamps are off this morning and the bond looks good. Used my fingernail to scrape off the excess glue that squeezed out and you can barely feel the separation at the break point. If it holds I'll be happy. There are a few spots where the finished flaked off. Going to fill that with some CF the pull the old frets off and put a new set of EVO Gold supper jumbo fret wire. I may have to shim or make a new nut but I won't know until the fretwork is complete. Also going to radius sand the fingerboard while the frets are out to clean it up a little bit. There are some indentations of the strings from the wire being as worn down as it is.

[pauldo]

Showing some love to that vintage beauty. 
Looking forward to seeing the rest of the refurbishing.

[fivestringdan]

I didn't have time to finish up today. Will try again tomorrow. I'll picture dump when it's all finished.

I do want to say how cool it is working with Alembic on getting this bass to how I want it. I'm replacing the saddles as somewhere along it's history the string spacing was changed and I'm not sure what they were going for. So I wanted to start fresh and ordered saddles last year. 46 years after this bass left the mothership you can buy saddles that fit PERFECTLY! I'm not aware of a manufacture that can provide accurate parts replacements on vintage equipment. So awesome!!!

[fivestringdan]

The repair worked. Not pretty but that's okay with me. I just want to play the bass not enter it in a beauty contest..lol

[lbpesq]

Nice job!

Bill, tgo

[fivestringdan]

Thank you, Bill!

When I asked Mica about doing the repair last year she told me they can make it look like it never happened. I didn't want that degree of finish work done so then Mica suggested I just do it myself. She let me know that shipping the bass would cost more than the repair so here were are! Mica also gave me a few pointers that were used in this repair that worked perfectly. Thank you so much, Mica!

Nice job!

Bill, tgo

[pauldo]

Very cool.   Understand about looks being secondary to functionality.

[fivestringdan]

The repair worked! Thank goodness it's so nice having this instrument back. I good friend and mentor is currently talking with Mica about a new build so I'm going to drop this bass off with him so he can decide if he wants Series electronics.

There were a few mistakes in the refret process that caused more work than I needed to do. Me getting in a hurry and not thinking about the task at hand have added up many extra hours for me. But the end results are great. New frets and new life for this instrument. I also made a new nut as the OG string depths were cut to deep for the super jumbo frets I installed.

I also noticed that the E string is stronger after the repair and refret/new nut. The old repair didn't look like a clean seal and wondered if that had something to do with it. Or the d-tuner that was on the E string.

Enjoy the work pics.

[fivestringdan]

Some lemon oil cleaning after the frets were finished and tape was removed.

[pauldo]

😎

[edwardofhuncote]

Looks like a solid repair to me Dan, nice job. And like you said, it ain't a looker anyway. You can get different shades of yellow and brown CA glue nowadays that will work well for that touch-up. I buy mine at Woodcrafters here, don't know if they have those out your way.

[lbpesq]

Greg, does the colored CA glue you get dry up in the bottle?  I got some from Stewmac, (black, white, amber), and a few months later each bottle was hard as a rock.  I contacted Stewmac.  They replaced it.  A few months later, same thing.  My clear CA never does this.

Bill, tgo

[fivestringdan]

Thanks for the heads up, Greg! I didn't know woodcraft sells the colored CA. I haven't had a repair that "required" colored glue yet. I try and stay away from finish repairs as I haven't invested in spray equipment and hopefully never will.

Thank you as well for the compliment. It means a lot coming from a seasoned repair luthier like yourself.

I wanted to add a few more pictures. I was having trouble attaching more than two at a time. These two pictures I just pulled the frets out and the other is after cleaning and sanding the board. Just a beautiful piece of ebony..wow! The lemon oil really does the job for ebony. I stopped using my orange oil/beeswax mix after I read about Alembic suggesting lemon oil.

Looks like a solid repair to me Dan, nice job. And like you said, it ain't a looker anyway. You can get different shades of yellow and brown CA glue nowadays that will work well for that touch-up. I buy mine at Woodcrafters here, don't know if they have those out your way.

[edwardofhuncote]

Greg, does the colored CA glue you get dry up in the bottle?  I got some from Stewmac, (black, white, amber), and a few months later each bottle was hard as a rock.  I contacted Stewmac.  They replaced it.  A few months later, same thing.  My clear CA never does this.

Bill, tgo

Yes... I never get to use a whole bottle before it cures. And it doesn't seem to matter which viscosity either, though the thick goes first. Drives me crazy too, because I am diligent about keeping the caps clean so they seal. One would think the lack of air would halt this...