Beautiful work-I'm always impressed when the hidden work is done with as much care as the visible.

Matt, to my eye looking at that powdery-like soft wood, the first thing that comes to mind is wood worms, like powder post beetle or something of that nature. How does the corner block look that this was sitting on as far as any similar damage? Also, I don't see that much edge damage at all from previous Back removals as we know the Back is rarely taken off if at all.

Very true. the back is rarely removed so perhaps there is another reason. I must have been on autopilot when writing that post! But there is no easily apparent worm or rot damage on the corresponding corner block. And I don't recall being too gung-ho im my removal of the back, either. So, cause uncertain.

Any progress?

nope. too busy with other things. Back is getting flatter and workshop backlog is clearing though ...

Not a huge progress but I think I had better feed you a little more anyway ...

After lot of patience the back is flat enough to deal with.

I don't have a shooting board four feet long so I improvise one on the benchtop. That's a #6 Stanley sliding on a waxed laminex benchtop.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7259/7...4e1ece8c1b.jpg

The centre joint is dirty to the core so I have to plane back to clean wood.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7210/6...9e77d0db3a.jpg

its nice putting the halves together like this because I can see how the two pieces are only a sawblade's width apart from the same plank. At least. i think i can see this.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7091/7...897909d5fd.jpg

I'll have to chalk fit the centre joint i think. The Stanley is good for getting a nice flat joint and the Veritas low angle bock plane will help me smooth any ripples.

Matthew,will you be installing a strip in the center to make up for lost wood due to planing and shrinkage? Looking good, by the way.

Possibly. I haven't had to plane much off, just carefully skimming the surface so far. I plan to do a test fit with the rib garland and see. I'd rather not if I can get away with it.

Often, over the years the plates shrink slightly and the wider areas over the Bass start to loose they overhang and become flush with the Ribs or worse. I think, even without seeing your bass in person that a minimum of a 2-3 mm center strip will be needed. Of course you have the bass and the birdseye view so I know you will make that call if need be. Unless the Bass had a proud overhang to begin with, the strip might be necessary. It is quite common on old basses, especially when you have to re-joint the center seam.

Well I did a test fit and although i think i could get away with no centre strip, I think I'll make life easier for myself and give my self 2-3mm back.

Dang ... which means I have to make an aesthetic choice of what to use down the centre of this highly flamed back!

A very dark hardwood, like rosewood, walnut or ebony, so as not to detract from the flame?

Rosewood or Ebony will move and shrink at a much greater rate than Maple throughout the seasons. Also, they are Oily woods and should be de-resinated befor gluing. On the Loveri, we used Tropical Walnut which I supplied, aged in my stock for over 15 years.

I'm looking sideways at a nice sliver of very dark zebrawood right now. You can hardly see the brown/black striping, but it is there.

Ken, thanks. I did not know that. I thought being dense they were more dimensionally stable than that, and although I know rosewood is resinous, I didn't know ebony was considered the same. That would make them difficult to glue for a thin stringer. Another dense wood that comes to mind that, in spite of its name, does age to a dark, even brown is purpleheart. What is your opinion of that wood as a stringer? I see it a lot on the electric side of things.
Indeed. I have a chunk of that right now I'm thinking about as a bridge block on an electric guitar to contrast the reddish finish.

Personally, I don't think dimensional stability on a 2mm wide piece of whatever is anywhere near as important as the dimensional stability of the 14" wide pieces of maple its glued to! Even if it is (properly seasoned) wood that shrinks and expands more than maple, it is only a very small percentage of its own dimension, and a small percentage of 2mm is a tiny fraction of a small percentage of the maple, if you see what i mean. And the long-ways shrinkage is insignificant. I'm more concerned about it "taking" hide glue but I haven't yet met a wood that can't be glued with hide glue very well. I'm sure they exist but i haven't found it yet.

I have not personally seen the need to de-resin (or de-oil!) ebony before gluing. And none of my fingerboards have fallen off yet.

The only problem *I* have with purpleheart is the revolting colour. How anyone can love it, is beyond me :-)

Over time with Ebony glued to maple you can feel the glue joint edge. So, something like the back of a bass is not like a fingerboard that can be replaced over time. The center strip of the back must stay for life and by the age of this or any other bass, we are talking 100s of years. Mostly, I see strips of maple being used on maple backs. Nothing fancy but it works. If you want dark, walnut works just fine. Having a bit of experience with all of these woods mentioned, I think maple or walnut are your best choices and colors to work from.

All good points Ken.

On the other hand, a fingerboard is a much bigger chunk of ebony, glued to a smaller chunk of maple. So the movement is going to be more significant there.

Lol, for sure but to find out, you might have to live a bit longer than the rest of us. ;)

Don't worry Ken. I'm planning to!



And May the Fourth be with you.

Well, Matthew, I had missed almost all of this great thread, so I have spent the time to sit and read through every post. Very engaging, fascinating stuff.

I'm looking forward to seeing the final product. I hope to begin another bass this month, but there have been a number of developments lately that might make me postpone again. (Sure hope not-- it has been five years sunce I finished the last one...)

Press on, my friend!

Chet Bishop

Matthew, how's that neck coming?

Not much change since you last saw it at Oberlin!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7253/7...e1d9f50d88.jpg

As you may recall, after gluing the bits together again

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8166/7...32c28b1717.jpg

I let Robbie loose with his jig

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8011/7...5eb9f0dbda.jpg

and before too long the mortise was formed.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7108/7...1ed1ec2b53.jpg

then we cleaned up the nice grafting block you sold me

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8154/7...c18b7af1a0.jpg

made some more fluffy shavings and chalk dust

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8002/7...b0a9714d2a.jpg

and fit the neck nicely into the mortise

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8002/7...186c4f5ab6.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7270/7...c876ed5283.jpg

It made it back here with the rest of my tools and tonewood, in one piece and without grief from customs officials

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7248/7...f438decd84.jpg

and is now on my second bench waiting for the weekend when i can crank up the bandsaw to cut some new cheeks.

That's great! I was wondering how you made out with the travel case. It was a pleasure sharing a bench with you. Got to see the process up close and personal.

Can't wait to see it recheeked and all finished!

Best,
Brian

Nice pics and work, Matthew. Brian, will you be starting up a thread on your endpin experiments soon? How is the Tarrantino sounding?

Hey Arnold,

Yes, I am still working on some ideas, but things are going well. Harrison is in town and I had him play it for me with a couple of different pins. I think I may just plug the regular endpin hole with a tailpiece hanger and just use the Laborie. I am starting to get used to it. Been tweaking the set up some, and I about have it dialed in. It sounded really good with John playing this morning.

I will be posting some things on it in the next few weeks. I just finished reorganizing my shop and now I can actually walk to my Lathe! Now that I have figured out how to play in that position, I can experiment with the different materials.

Best,
Brian

So how's the bass coming along, Matthew?

OK, OK :)


Once the graft was glued, I checked the cheeks and back.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8444/7...38e235fae6.jpg

The repair join was good, but it was a toss-up between an inlay repair of the back of the scroll and re-doing the cheeks. Given the state of the scroll, I decided to re-cheek as well. Also, there is the little broken bit of the edge that I put somewhere and now cannot find ...

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8179/7...c4b8c24950.jpg

While I was waiting for suitable repair wood to arrive from Europe, I hollowed out the pegbox.

That's the Lignum Vitae carver's mallet my Mum gave me a few years back.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8442/7...ddc9c67fdb.jpg

The black mark is a woodpecker peck, or a nail hole, or something. It doesn’t worry me as it’s not in a critical position. I may chisel it out altogether eventually.


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8310/7...40729914a2.jpg

The sides were planed back as little as possible and holes filled where needed with new maple. These will mostly be covered and the holes drilled out again, but a bit of repair wood in there will minimise splitting.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8169/7...bb2772792e.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8303/7...e98a19dd6d.jpg


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8174/7...70f94d52db.jpg


The scroll this morning, new cheeks and in process of shaping. I was careful to document the chamfer before planing off the sides, so I can try to make the new chamfer as close to the original.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8444/7...525b4c7ce8.jpg

The sides of the scroll will be probably 1.5mm thicker than the original, and I will probably finish the top of the cheeks with a gentle scoop into the existing volute, instead of a smooth transition, as I want to keep a good thickness of wood up near the top of the pegbox where it counts.

On the pic below I have redrilled the guideholes for the tuners; I measured these with calipers using triangulation from the lower corners before gluing on the cheeks. You can also see a tiny hole where I used a pin to accurate register the cheeks for gluing.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8033/7...a49e67a0a5.jpg

The new cheeks were cut from a flamed violin back wedge. Even though the grafting neck block itself was rather plain maple, I decided it would be a pity not to try to match the flame on the rest of the instrument, in the scroll. Due to the smallish size of the back wedge, the flame is angled back a few degrees from normal.

It's nice flame, pity my lighting is so crap.

Looks great, your lighting is fine, and thanks for keeping us up to date on the progress.

If anyone has any real, practical, tried tips about keeping a flatback flat for reglueing, send them through. This one wants to curl up like a potato chip. I've tried lots of things, dampening and clamping flat, using heat and clamps etc, drying out under lamps etc, but as soon as I pull the clamps off it starts to curl again. And not in the direction I want it to. Quite frustrating!! I'm now considering sealing the inside surface to slow the moisture loss.

Maybe you need to overbend it the other way? The cheeks look great by the way.

Is the back naturally so warped that you couldn't just work around it? I have to wonder about using any method of forcing something like that in a way it doesn't want to go - seems like at some point it will always go back where it wants to be and pull things apart, or at least introduce a lot of stress.

Maybe at some point a new back isn't such a terrible thing, if the original is just going to compromise the rest of the instrument.

The back on my Tarantino was the same way. When I took it off it when haywire. Looked like a big pringle. I did the same thing and clamped it flat. I also added the center strip to it, which was a crazy challenge. every thing I did I tried to make sure that it was clamped flat for final shaping. I think that it finally relaxed, but I just kept it in a really regulated room. (Clamped to the dining room table... the wife loved it. :D)

I think it finally relaxed to a point that I could get it re-joined, but it didn't come out perfectly. I had at least one or two proud spots and one dip. I think that was due to a flaw in my clamping process. Which I will know better next time. However, the bass sounded much better after taking all of that stress out of the back and making it function as a unit.

Do the halves at least match in their warpage? are they going different directions?

Don't have all the answers for you, but hope you get it worked out.

Best,
Brian

Any progress, Matthew?

erm ... not enough to show just yet. :(

waiting on some french-look tuners though.

Why not just restore the Tuners that were on the bass? Are any of them broken? If not, those are the classic tuners expected to see on a French bass.

the original tuners are not in very good shape. And probably not worth restoring. What do you recommend as an alternative, Ken?

I know you didn't ask my opinion, but if the originals are completely unsalvageable, my personal choice would be Sloane all day long. They're the only machines I would choose for my own personal bass.

edit - and yes, I know they're nowhere close to original appearing or anything, and they're heavy and expensive (and slow) - but they work! :D

Matthew, there is a guy in France making total copies of the old French bass machines. I have seen them on Laborie basses I think. With your excellent research skills, I bet you can find him. When you do, get me in please...

I would first have to have a look at the tuners there before I agree to change them. Then, look around for something that would be comparable for a French-like look that is available today.

My Jacquet-Pillement came to me with replaced gears already so I never had the chance to restore the old ones. Starting as a 3-stringer, if modified with a 4th French gear, it is more than likely a mis-match anyway. My Lamy that was converted recently from 3 to 4 has 3 different kinds of gears. Only 2 of them match but are all similar.

You can have a look at the Gears of the Jacq-Pill but I am not sure what the gears are on the bass or if still available. The Lamy is an example of one or two gears being added or replaced that almost match. That is another idea unless yours are totally shot. The old ones do however look best on a bass like that.

The back has been a pain to flatten, so i'm going to try a new approach. First I had to see whether I needed to add some wood to the centre back seam.

First, I tacked the repaired top onto the ribs

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8346/8...8d6a8f4a29.jpg

This allowed me to position the bass on the back to see how my overhangs are looking.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8504/8...493e95bed0.jpg

With the top tacked on I can move the corners and ribs around to see if everything will fit. It's been apart so long, not everything lines up nicely. But with a bit of persuasion, I am convinced everything will eventually go back as needed.

I decided to add a thin centre strip. Pictured below is my setup for gluing to one side only. The long hardwood beam holds the back flat to the perspex backing.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8199/8...e214af23ce.jpg http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8490/8...ba86107123.jpg

I use wedges to clamp the hardwood strip to the side.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8199/8...b276c2f1b9.jpg

The strip will be trimmed down to the width of the back plate, then I'll have another challenge to glue the other side.