French Bass full restoration

[Thomas Erickson]

Originally Posted by Craig Regan

So... Is the plan to re graduate, then put the bass bar and cleats back in? Or is it a combination of installing and graduating as you go?

Also... how do you keep from losing your crack locations?

You can't really remove wood from under the bass bar or cleats...

I think he said further up the thread that he uses a grease pencil or something to mark out the cracks...

[Matthew Tucker]

The procedure is to get the top thicknesses right first, then add the bass bar and cleats. It's much easier to track the cracks now that the surface is mostly clean wood.

Thomas here are SOOO many variables I really don't think anyone could live long enough to repeat what Carleen Hutchins did in her lifetime and come up with something new. I think that measuring the resonance of a free plate is a completely different thing to measuring an assembled instrument - no comparisons can be made because they are two different things. It would not be hard to measure an assembled instrument I suppose, but then it would be very complicated to make any adjustments. I'm not about to go there!

[Steve Alcott]

Any progress? I've really been fascinated by this project.

[Matthew Tucker]

A bit of progress with cleating the top. There are many ways of doing this, but I prefer long diamond cleats because they make most sense to me; maximum glue contact and flexibility and offset grain. They are a bit tricky to trim without nicking the top, but I've done enough now to be able to do it fairly quickly.



Very sharp blade essential!



Some more trimming will be done before I'm happy. Although this is work that only the angels will get to see I like to make sure it's done neatly.




I might add a few more cleats later or some linen strips depending on how I feel.



Here for comparison:



And here's a video of how i do it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOayNxDvuPM

[Thomas Erickson]

Nice - thanks for keeping us posted.

That's a beastly looking chisel!

[Matthew Tucker]

The chisel is the one I use for mortising a neck block, and I like its weight and the fact that it holds a razor edge really well. Not sure it's perfect for the job though - I'd be interested to see what other luthiers use for this task. I have a feeling that a paring chisel with a short wide blade would be even better.

[Thomas Erickson]

Personally I think a long, well balanced paring chisel would probably be choice; but like most things whatever is comfortable and sharp is going to work best, even if it isn't by the textbook...