To regraduate or not...
Beeing privileged to have some of the best luthiers worlwide in our forum i'd like to ask them their opinion (for one more time). I have a Romanian fully carved bass with low piz volume and a better arco sound. Taking the magnetic caliper (which measures the thickness from the outside) i found that the top is rather thick, with more than 9 mm in the center and more than 7 mm around the f holes. I have the Wake's plans and also Amati and Panoromo plans and all of them show proper graduation schemes, more al less like the violin's pattern, with less thickness everywhere. The bass has nice tonewoods, with an excellent flamed back and a very good medium grained top. The bass came to me as a gift from one of my students who makes a astonishing carrer in engineering in Romania. I have a lot of experience in regraduating violins but in basses it is going to be my first venture. I have all the necessary tools (finger planes, scrapers, calipers etc) and i have experience in opening the top and replacing it. Do you think that regraduating it i can improve the quality of the bass? I need a louder piz sound, seeking for a "booming" response. What other factors do i have to take into account?
Thanks in advance
Mike
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