French Bass full restoration

[Steve Alcott]

Speaking for myself, I enjoy every picture. I can't imagine being a bassist and not finding this account of a total restoration fascinating-I look forward to every installment, and feel like I'm learning a lot.

[Matthew Tucker]

OK So I just made an executive decision that I am not going to stand for this crappy spirit varnish remnant any longer.



It crumbles, it melts and sticks to the bench, it gets into everything ... enough is enough! No more pussyfooting around - this bass is going to be stripped and refinished! Starting NOW.





Before:



AFTER:





This will make my restoration work SO much easier. I should have done this a long time ago.

Underneath the crap you can see patches of the original colour. And a whole lot of dings, cracks and other damage ...





But the wood underneath is rather special. And it's nice to see the hand of the maker at last!

[Steve Alcott]

Gack-that looked like crude oil on the plastic scraper-the wood is really beautiful. It's gonna be spectacular with a new finish.

[AndrewHamilton]

Seeing this restoration is really inspiring. Can't wait to see how it comes together...

[Matthew Tucker]

Originally Posted by AndrewHamilton

Can't wait to see how it comes together...

haha! me too. But we're going to have to be patient ...

[Matthew Tucker]

OK remember this?







Most of the button was destroyed and filled with wood putty, bolts and stuff. So I cut it off and trimmed each half plate at a suitable grain line, leaving as much original wood as possible.

[Matthew Tucker]

(This is a wee bit out of sequence with some of the pics I posted recently - you may if you have keen eyes notice that I did the first part of what comes next, a little while ago)

After quite a bit of hunting around and eventually a friendly donation from Ken McKay I obtained some highly flamed maple close to the original.



Of course, this is brand new wood; it wood (!) have been better to find some old flamed maple but there's precious little of this over here.

I probably should have "aged" the wood first before fitting, but I'm counting on being able to match it under the varnish later.

I think a butt-join isn't enough here; although the hide glue joint is very strong, this place needs some long maple fibres running across the joint, so I plane the end down at an angle to put the maximum new wood in place with the minimum join showing at the plate edge. Most of the NEW wood runs along the centre seam, and feathers out towards the edge of the repair.





I don't need to use such fancy maple for this piece, but the grain will still be running almost the same way.





My new Veritas low angle block plane has been brilliant for this job.







Here's the edge of the off-cut and you can see how good the joint is. I have planed off almost all the way through the plate at the centreline, but angled back up to the edge of the plate so that the join will only be visible on the edge of the button itself, not the plate edge.



Well that's enough for now. I'll trim these more and blend the outside with the french-style button later when the plate is re-jointed and probably re-glued to the block!