French Bass full restoration

[Matthew Tucker]

Have to admit that my strategy is not yet fully crystallised. I wanted to see how well the joint cleaned up first. Yes it will need re-cheeking and I'm fortunate that it isn't heavily figured wood, so the repair may be well hidden if I do it well. I'm not sure that simple bushing of the pegholes is going to strengthen things much. In the Strad Secrets book there's a nice conical bushing method a guy has developed - I really like it. But whether I want to get tooled up for just this repair I don't know.

Over here one of my biggest challenges is to find the wood for these repairs. If I'm going to use maple I have to find and import a neck block. If I use beech or sycamore, I may be able to find something here. Or I could use another wood entirely. Obviously beech was original. Any suggestions for a good supplier?

Also important to remember this is a practical restoration to a working bass condition. There isn't the budget for an "as original" restoration. I really won't be able to save much if any of the original varnish. And since I am replacing the neck block, we may be converting this to a removable neck, too.