Bad idea #1,152

Putting bolts in necks of basses is a really bad idea. I've pulled many screws, bolts and even nails out of necks after Joe dude with a power drill decided that "I'm gonna fix that there broken neck once and fer all! This thing ain't goin' nowhere after I drill this here wood screw into it."
I will admit, it seems like a great idea. I mean, wood screws have been holding various wood items together for years. Fences, furniture, houses etc. And heck, the bass is made of wood, right? Yes, but let's discuss this for a moment. Wood, especially the wood that fine instruments are made from, is very sensitive. It reacts to temperature and pressure changes. It continues to expand and/or contract throughout it's life as a violin or a bass or a guitar or a house or a bookshelf. Think about this. We've all been in or lived in an older home at some point. Ya know how those pesky little nails snag your socks as you walk across the old hardwood floors? Well, the wood in the floors has shifted with age but the metal nails stay exactly the same. Now think about that concept in relation to a musical instrument. Especially on a wooden instrument that is very large and frequently moved around. By putting a rigid metal fastener in the neck it can actually start to force a break open again and then you have a much harder repair to try and fix. "How about using a wooden dowel in place of a bolt?", you ask.... Again, sounds like a great idea but it's not.
A wooden dowel can be just as bad or worse than putting a bolt through the neck. The wood of the dowel is going to shift in a different way than the wood of the neck. They end up fighting against each other most of the time resulting in a break being forced open again. In the case of a broken neck, if a neck graft is unfeasible, just stick with plain old hide glue. Getting a good clean glue joint is the most effective repair. More about neck grafts tomorrow....

Taking shape

So my bass bar is taking shape. This is the fun part. Cutting just so that the table, or the top of the instrument, sings. Then the top gets glued back on and the bass bar goes back into hiding...

Twitter

So we're on twitter now. Not sure how I feel about that or what I'm going to "tweet" about but we're trying it out. So if you do that twitter thing, follow us. Please. Thanks.

The Bass Bar

Where basses go for a drink after a long day in rehearsal.
Hahahahahaha!

I'm only halfway through a very long day in the shop.
I apologize for the attempt at a corny joke.

Setting a new bass bar into my Prescott project. I'll post some pictures in the next few days. This here is a picture of a bass bar that I put in an old Czech bass many years ago. That bass ended up sounding great! I'd like to write more about bass bars but that's going to have to happen later. Gotta get back to my project before I lose my light.

More to come!

New logo!

Alright! This gem was worth the wait. Thanks so much to Aaron Draplin from DDC for the fantastic logo. Just put an order in for t-shirts and other promo stuff today. I should have a whole bunch of nifty stuff for sale in the shop by the beginning of September.

More blogging soon. I PROMISE!

Look at my beautiful eyes....

At the request of a customer, I added mahogany "eyes" to the fingerboard of his bass. These eyes serve as markers for certain intervals or specific notes. Although this fingerboard modification would have Koussevitzky rolling over in his grave, a lot of kids are doing it these days. One of these "cool kids" being none other than the great Edgar Meyer. Although he gets a lot of criticism from his fellow Classical musicians, he proudly displays his "dots" with the thought that why not make things a little easier if you can. Although I tend to side more with the rigid traditionalism of the Classical music world, I think they look kinda pretty....

Sweet Cheeks

Here's an example of a quick repair I'm doing on yet another, older middle European instrument. It seems the scroll busted off many moons ago and was never repaired correctly. For a long time basses were commonly repaired by various woodworkers, but not by violinmakers. It is still quite common for violin shops to turn away basses at the door. I assume it's the sheer size of the instruments that is foreboding....the bigger they come, the more time they consume and the greater the cost of supplies needed to fix the darn thing. But, back to what I was saying.... Often times basses were "repaired" by boat builders, cabinet makers, and generally any other Joe Dude with a workbench in his garage. I've seen basses screwed together with wood screws and necks bolted to blocks. I've pulled numerous staples and nails out of scrolls and necks. I've seen basses held together with Elmer's, hot plastic "glue gun" glue, and even duct tape. Whenever I get a call about "Grandpa's old bass" that's been sitting in the hallway closet for 20 years, I never know what to expect. As is the case with old "sweet cheeks" here. After years of being held together by wood screws and putty, it was time to fix her up the right way. I soaked all the old glue and putty out of the fracture and re-glued with a nice, clean glue seam. Then, to reinforce the break AND to pretty up the outer "cheeks" of the peg box, I removed a 3mm layer of the original wood and replaced it with a new maple veneer. When doing a job like this, it is important to match the chevron of the new wood with that of the old. In this case, the chevron refers to the "V shaped" pattern in the flame of the maple. That way the two woods will move and age similarly and also absorb and reflect light in the same way. With precise varnish touch up, this repair can literally disappear.