[Ken Smith]

I mentioned before that the original bass may of had one other neck graft besides the current one BUT, looking closer at the rounded button area recently we counted about 4 graft like pieces showing, maybe 5 in total. At that point we both agreed that the rounded button is more probable than not, a modification to the bass at some point in its life.

NEW: After prepping the Peg Box for the New Graft it was discovered that the latest Graft had several Shims in it that from the outside looked like other previous Grafts. This may have been done due to an ill-fitted Graft attempt or, the Graft was prepared too short and shimmed up to fill the gaps. Also, it's possible that after cutting the graft block some 30-40 years ago it was decided after to pull out some older graft pieces that were maybe not going to hold. Since no one is alive that I know of to shed light on this we can only assume. The Shims which are solid were left in and all other areas in question repaired within the pegbox.

On the Purfling I have decided that copying the original Purfling in the original may not look as good on the modified copy so we will look into that when the time comes.

On the original bass called a 'Storioni' I have made an announcement on my website as well as the two 'cornerless' threads that the suspected age of the original may pre-date Storioni's work period. It is now called an 18th century Italian Cornerless bass, 'ex-Riccardi' by description.

One other thing that will be different between the copy and the original is the matching of the hardwoods. The original has a flamed back, burled ribs and a plain scroll, all in hard maple. The Copy will be fairly well matched flamed hard maple, Back, Ribs and Neck/Scroll alike.