Quote:
Originally Posted by Nathan Levine
Not carving. Caving. And I know it is bad.  In person you can see pretty clearly around the bass bar area where the roundness of the top seems to have flattened out quite a bit since it was new. I could have sworn that Hammond Ashly told me when they first looked at it in 2003 that it would need to be reattached at some point. I related that info to my luthier here in Anchorage, AK and he went ahead and did it for me.
What he described doing sounded fairly unorthodox and I can imagine it will have anyone who knows what is what holding their heads in sadness. He explained that he had carved a very small type of cross brace to fit the very end of the bar into and then glued the whole thing down. I winced a bit when he told me this and thought, well... no one else to take it to in Anchorage so I better hope that it holds for a good long time.
Josef Budil (b.1932) seems to have been a real person who worked in Luby for many decades. Studied under Hrib and Pechar and was a double bassist himself according to this scan. The owner of Lemur thinks he may have met him 20 or so years ago while bopping around Eastern Europe looking for basses.
http://www.mtmmusicalinstruments.com/page36.html
As for my wish list, apologies for taking the discussion of the Budil off topic, but I am a man conflicted about what I want and sometimes I don't accurately convey how I am full of contradictions. I don't mean to sound confused, I just have a number of different, sometimes conflicting desires.
The ease of playing and transporting a small bass for most gigs that are slightly amplified anyway is mighty appealing. Hence the desire for something small. But the sound of a big old bass is ultimately what I want acoustically so the idea of a Prescott is also kicking around in the back of my mind. My brother is currently a member of the bass section in New World and the last time he visited he agreed to remind me whenever I started talking about wanting something different that the Budil sounds damn good for my needs.
So back to the Budil. How important is it to get a new bass bar installed? And can you suggest someone that would be able to do that well AND turn it into a removable neck instrument at the same time? |
Your bass is not properly fixed as far as the bar re-attachment goes. The strip across the bass under the bar is ok but your top has to be pressed out and then a new bar goes in. That will run on the low thousands and up depending on how depressed the top is and how long it takes to get its shape back in the process.
Interesting info on the maker Budil and the Strunal masters profiled. With this information post dating most of the books written on the makers, it's nice to see a website that continues to name the names that make the instruments.
I have a JB Allen Bass (
1841, Springfield Mass.) that would compete easily against any Prescott but the condition is immaculate. If you get up this wass and the bass is still available, don't miss it. It is the most powerful bass I have including my Panormo school and Tarr bass, two other cannons I own. I had and sold a big Prescott a few years ago. This Allen bass I consider to be even better.