French Bass full restoration

[Matthew Tucker]

Here's the patch just before gluing in:



And here's the patch glued in and trimmed:



You can see how nicely it fits at the edges. I'm pretty happy how it turned out :-)



I decided that I *would* shave the thin dark layer off the surface of the wood, at least as far as the bass bar, and I'm glad that i did. These patches look as if they are reinforcing the main centre glue line.



But when the dark layer is removed, it's very clear that there's another previous crack there that I couldn't see before (see next pic). It's a bit of a pity to remove the dirt/patina, but going back to clean wood is going to allow me to make better repairs, and as the purpose is to result in a functional bass, I think the decision is sensible.



This is a nice view of repaired top to date.



We've made it from here:



to here:



And I really MUST do something about getting a consistent colour-balance in my photos!