re- graduations
I believe you have to weigh in the graduations with the density of the wood and the arching of the plates. Too strong or too weak in all 3 areas is no good. In the strength areas, pick 2 of the 3 at most. In the weak areas, be careful. You can't change the wood or arching so re-graduate it down to where it is still strong and wont cave in.
Only 4 of the basses I have had needed the graduations re-done. Of the four, 3 of them top and back to various degrees and one the Top only. Also, several of the basses that I have or have passed thru my hands were already re-graduated when I got them. Some needed wood put back in as breast patches during restoration. Some were fine as-is and correctly corrected beforehand.
Tone results? All of the 4 that were done under my watch were improved.
I mention only 4 needed the work done. That is because these are mostly higher grade basses rather than factory German Shop basses for the most part. If you deal in French and German factory basses, your percentages will be higher in overly thick plates. It's quite common.
I have never had to thin down the Ribs of a bass. They all seemed just fine. Some had overly thick linings and correcting that was just enough. I have heard of Ribs up to 5mm that were taken down.
Sound results in most cases resulted in a deeper more even and musical sound. In one bass which was French it helps only a little as the sound of the wood and its design were pretty much unchangeable.
Think very carefully before taking wood out of a bass. You can never put it back in. Building the graduations back up from a bass that was overly thinned in areas is much harder to do than take wood away. The new wood will never age to sound exactly like the original missing wood.
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