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Old 06-25-2007, 02:04 AM
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Ken Smith Ken Smith is offline
Bassist, Luthier & Admin
 
Join Date: 01-18-2007
Location: Perkasie, PA
Posts: 4,851
Ken Smith is on a distinguished road
Cool 5s and Bs...

In the late 70s when I used to buy, fix and sell Basses in my spare time as my hobby I ran across a modern German 5 in a NY Pawn Shop which I bought on the spot with my credit card. I took it home and after fixing a Top crack (top off) and re-varnishing the Top only with a nice Oil Varnish I mixed I converted the Bass back to a 4-string. I planed down the overhang on the fingerboard, took off the 3/2 plate gears, plugged and re-drilled for 2/2 plates, re-cut the bridge top and bingo, I had a nice 4-string which sold soon after it was done. This was a Juzek/Wilferish type Bass very similar to the Hofner 5 I am selling at the moment.

In my 20 years of playing, other than in Books or on TV (Boston Symphony) I had never seen anyone play a 5-string DB!

Several years ago I saw the 2nd one which was a Bob G/Bulgarian Bass. Must have been the older models with the shiny Lacquer finish and low neck stand model. I played only a few notes on it and that was it.

The 3rd was a Pollmann belonging to the former Principal of the Met. He had the B tuned to a C. For most things this made sense but for octaves like in the Brandenbergs, it needed to be in 4ths down to B for the fingering. This is the Bass I borrowed to see if the 5 was for me at all. I decided I did need one but opted to convert one of my extra Basses instead of buying that one. My Morelli was on the bench at Arnolds and the Peg Box was an inch shorter than the Pollmann so we scrapped the conversion on that Bass and put a fingered Extension on it instead. I used that Bass for a few concerts and then sold the Bass. The new owner played mainly Jazz and took off the Extension.

The 4th one was my current Hungarian Bass that WAS a conversion from a 4-string. This had a slightly longer Peg Box plus room at the top to Chisel away some more wood to fit the new set of 5 Tuners. This is a large bodied Bass with a longer lower bout and FFs placed higher on the Body allowing for a 41 1/4" String Length while the Belly Length is over 45". A normal 3/4 would be closer to 43" body length so this modified 7/8ths has some extra 'body' to it which helps out that added 5th string volume wise. Also, the Top has a huge arch making it a strong Top well able to handle a 5th string. Actually, Arnold had mentioned that this Top is so strong, it doesn't even need a Bass Bar. He put one in anyway just in case!

The 5th one that comes to mind in this countdown is the Hofner 5 that I am listing in behalf of Paul Biase Violins, NY. This is a nice Bass for the money and only played it a short time when I took the Pics a few months ago. If I were in the market for one now, I would seriously consider this Bass. It has more normal 3/4 dimensions in Body and String length. For someone needing a 5er, this would be a good buy short of buying an upper end more expensive Bass for regular professional Orchestra use.

For Strings, I can only comment on my Hungarian Bass and the Pollmann which I used in Concert as well. The Pollmann had 4 Flexocors and a Jaegar medium B-string. My Bass had Flex. Tops and Perm. bottoms (A,E,B). Currently I have 4 Flex's and a Perm. 'B'. I am considering trying out a complete set of Flat-ChromeSteels which seems to be lighter tensioned than the Flex's but that is judging it from another 4-string (w/C-Ext) English Bass I played the other day.

Bridge Arching: What I do usually is slide a pencil or ruler between 3 strings laying it flat on the top of the Bridge surface and look at the height off the the line of the middle string which should measure about 1/4". I do this 2x on a 4-string and 3x on the 5 to check bow clearance on all the inner strings.

Here are some pics I took for a Bow listing I had a few years ago using my 5-string. These pics though not intended to show Bridge arch still gives an idea of what I have. Last week I tweaked the arch slightly once again lowering the B (which raises the E-arch) and lowering both the G and D (which raised the A and kept the relation from the D to the G). I will not be a good judge of my work until I get into rehearsal with the Bass playing the Beeth. 6th which is on my stand for the Summer to work on.

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