Neck block work

[Matthew Tucker]

Ok guys, I have a '80s german bass in the WS with that typical Rubner-style of block where the ribs sit snug up against the heel, with no ledge and ebony strip at the sides. The mortise is about an inch deep.

So, the neck has popped out and taken away some of the wood at the sides of the block, but as you know with this style, there isn't much there to begin with because the sides of the mortise taper away to nothing.

First I thought I'd just build up the sides of the mortise again, but I wondered how strong this would be as this would only really be glueing "packing" between the ribs and the heel, and wouldn't be substantially joined to the block itself.

But in fact the heel was only ever in glue contact at the sides of the mortise, so it has only ever been the ribs and the button holding it there all this time!

Is there any trick to more reliably restoring the mortise here, short of replacing the block with something a little more substantial?