French Bass full restoration

[Thomas Erickson]

Originally Posted by Matthew Tucker

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.

No, ordinary bushing isn't going to strengthen much, I don't think... Is this "conical" bushing the same as a spiral bushing? That is to say, a thin shave of wood installed with the grain running "around" the inside of the hole, using a tapered caul sort of thing? While I'm not sure that the technique is all that useful on basses in general (as opposed to the other strings), I think that in a case like this it seems like a good idea.

Definitely interested to see what you come up with... and I trust you will fix it and not hang it on the wall...