French Bass Brace advice

[Matthew Tucker]

How has the original doubling repair failed?

[Adrian Levi]

Originally Posted by Matthew Tucker

How has the original doubling repair failed?

The original doubling was strong enough , but had holes cut in it to accept long glued pieces of wood . Also it was a cheap type plastic wood mix kind of thing, and in my opinion did not belong on the bass.If I put another real wood veneer onto the rib it would regain its strength but I was thinking of perhaps using thin willow or spruce strips with linen strips in between from lining to lining ?

[Pino Cazzaniga]

I prefer willow or poplar or spruce strips than veneer.
I would glue the linen strips a bit on the linings too, to prevent cracks at their inner edges.

[Matthew Tucker]

I think if you can be assured of a good glue joint them a veneer doubling would be strongest especially if the rib is badly damaged. So effectively you have a new rib but with the old rib becoming a decorative veneer itself. And if you're going to replace the linings then the doubling can go edge to edge.

But getting a good glue joint on such a large surfaces is tricky, it is much more practical to fit and clamp softwood strips and/or linen Ã* la Bollbach

[Thomas Erickson]

Japanese paper?

[Adrian Levi]

Originally Posted by Thomas Erickson

Japanese paper?

Tell me more ???

I've seen brown cardboard box type paper being used before but have never been able to find out much about it .

[Thomas Erickson]

Originally Posted by Adrian Levi

Tell me more ???

I've seen brown cardboard box type paper being used before but have never been able to find out much about it .

Well, I don't know a lot about it either, but I've been meaning to track down some samples and whatnot. If anybody has looked into it or has a suggestion of what to look at/for specifically, I'd be happy to hear it - I have two basses with super thin ribs that need something done with them, and I plan to try this on one or both.

But basically there's a whole spectrum of high quality Japanese papers out there that people use for various art/craft purposes; a lot of them are made by hand (to some degree) and should be of conservation-type quality. The fiber used is very specific, high quality, single source and minimally processed, and the papers come in every thickness, texture etc. that you can imagine. As far as I know, this is where you want to look to find the strongest/lightest very best quality paper - and if it is like Japanese tools, I don't doubt it!

So in theory you should be able to find an ideal paper for this sort of purpose - it makes sense to me, I mean, after all what is paper but an extremely uniform manufactured wood product, yes?

[Adrian Levi]

Originally Posted by Matthew Tucker

I think if you can be assured of a good glue joint them a veneer doubling would be strongest especially if the rib is badly damaged. So effectively you have a new rib but with the old rib becoming a decorative veneer itself. And if you're going to replace the linings then the doubling can go edge to edge.

But getting a good glue joint on such a large surfaces is tricky, it is much more practical to fit and clamp softwood strips and/or linen Ã* la Bollbach

Matthew , that link you sent was kind of what I had in mind , that repair looks
super stable.

[Matthew Tucker]

Stefano Sciascia told me the ribs of his cornerless bass (the one I copied) are lined completely with linen from end-to end. The bass still sounds beautiful.

[Adrian Levi]

Originally Posted by Matthew Tucker

Stefano Sciascia told me the ribs of his cornerless bass (the one I copied) are lined completely with linen from end-to end. The bass still sounds beautiful.

I've experimented with gluing linen into wood to see how much punishment it can take and found that it is incredibly strong. Seeing that it shrinks a bit after drying it seems to hold cracks together very nicely. The weight to area ratio also makes sense to me ,it weighs a fraction of what wood does and is simple to get near perfect gluing contact.