French Bass full restoration

[Amund Lie]

Just want to thank you for this thread. It really inspires me to see and read all of this. Excellent work!

Greetings from Norway.

-Amund

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Matthew Tucker

According to the guys at contrabass.co.uk John Lott I born 1776 met BS Fendt 1 and got a job in Dodd's shop making cellos and basses. So according to that account the Senior WAS a luthier.

Hi son John (jack) Lott II (b 1814) was the colourful character who was also a luthier who learnt his stuff from his father, then later in Richard Davis's shop, and then later went on to be elephant trainer and rascal, and then luthier again expert with a reputation as expert copyist. I read a great anecdote where J Lott II made two violins, "dirtied them up" a little, put them in a couple of old cases and sold them at market for 60 pounds each. This really pissed his father off, who hated the false antiquing tricks, so he (J Lott I) made two beautiful new violins, took them to the same market ... and couldn't sell them. Thus began the parting of their ways ...

Thomas Martin's article says that John Lott II worked in Dodd & Metzler's shop on an outwork basis. It appears that both father and son worked in the same Shop.

In the end it doesn't really matter though for me who designed the "Lott" bass I wat to build. It has lovely proportions and those big blunt-ended corner blocks.

Ok, you have been reading a bit, That's a good thing, First off, the blunt/squared corners are all basses made by Lott snr. (b.1776 in London) but were actually made for the shop of Thomas Dodd and are known as Dodd Basses made by Lott, if you wanna break it down. Yes, Bernhard Fendt Srn. trained him in the Dodd shop.

I just replied to you on the Lott thread as well. See what's there as it's on topic about Lott.

Once again, there are actually 3/three John Lott's. The eldest married in London in 1775, not a Luthier and possibly (POSSIBLY) came from Germany and was a furniture/cabinet/chair makers or whatever. @nd was the son born J.F. Lott in 1776 and then 3rd, HIS son J'F' Lott Jnr. aka Jack Lott. On the Snr./Jnr. thing if anyone cares, the same thing happened with William Forster. The first Maker in London was William II but was known as Old Forster. His father, also William Forster was a Violin maker in Brampton and never worked in London. William Forster III was called Young Forster and employed Samuel Gilkes. Young F' had two sons, William IV (no other title) and the youngest was Simon Andrew who was trained by IV and Gilkes according to even S.A himself in his own book written decades later.

So, this Snr, Jnr type stuff gets confusing BUT, it's good to know what you are actually making a copy of especially is that person did not make basses by trade. Sorry for the rant..
\Oh, and the British refer to J.F. Lott the bass maker from Dodd as 'Grandfather Lott' to make it even more confusing. Perhaps he was to some the Grandfather of the flat back Maggini style/model London bass, maybe. Panormo made them with roundbacks so that's the main difference besides doing it there 10 years before Lott ever touched a bass.

[Adrian Levi]

Originally Posted by Ken Smith

Matt, I would like to point out that I have seen a few Basses with 2 piece blocks across the width as well as Laminated Blocks in the depth. Also, a few of my Basses that were restored had an added piece laminated for the depth to either deepen the neck set and strengthen the bottom of the block or due to the block being cut from the top to shorten the bass.

My Hart had it's original Blocks inside it when it was opened up. The upper and lower blocks were two pieced Pine. It seems that this was either done due to a shortage of materials or perhaps a method for stability. We will never know the actual 'why' these things were done in the past but if they survived 180 years, I think they got it right.

In the case of this French Bass you are working on which looks to be a Mirecourt production rather then a makers individual single made bass, Blocks and other materials were used as they were supplied to the workers. I would assume that if the part was bad in the beginning, it would be tossed and not used but foresight in which what might survive the future or not was not a decision of a single worker.

Also, from the looks of the condition of this bass being left alone for so long, dryness and stress combined can easily split any wide straight grained piece of wood like this Block. It can also split from the other pieces of wood glued to it as the weakest link is what usually gives. So, if you think this Bass needs some extra strength in the block material itself, two pieces glued of slightly different grain might help. Just my 2 cents, or 3 or 4..

Keep up the good work. I bet you can't wait for the next big job to walk into your shop huh?..lol

2 x French basses with 2 piece neck blocks / the only other French bass I know also has the same , I thought that may be standard with older French instruments !

[Matthew Tucker]

Here we go again.

Remember the scroll badly glued with lashings of PVA?



Well I had to break the "repair" open. Very carefully.



Its very hot and humid here in Sydney and not a good time to be gluing neck blocks so I'm going to clean out all the PVA.

Here's my workshop for the afternoon:



The equipment



The PVA mess







VERY fiddly job. Steam, vinegar, stiff brush, pick pick pick with sharp knife and tweezers and a LOT of patience. More like dentistry than luthiery. All done with a 10x magnifying visor, too.



Scroll side cleaned up

[Matthew Tucker]

In this very odd photo of my leg and thumb, on the back of the scroll you can see a fracture where the pegbox is almost breaking through.



More rubbery goo.



Before and after.



Much better.

A bit daunting to think that this all has to glue back together and be strong enough for a neck graft later.

You wouldn't think it, but probably an hour and a half's work all up :-(

The only mishap was when I took a swig of old vinegar instead of my glass of ouzo and ice.



In all this closeup work I've had a good look at this head. VERY long, nicely cut, blackened chamfers, and I think it's beech, not maple.

[Eric Hochberg]

Question, will the neck graft become the main structure of the broken up scroll now? It seems amazing that this thing would stay together.

[Arnold Schnitzer]

Matthew, what is your repair strategy? Are you going to deeply re-cheek the sides of the pegbox to strengthen it? Considering that it broke right at the tuner shaft, my fear would be that it's likely to happen again unless heavily reinforced. I'm sure you've thought of the same thing. Would you consider having your neck graft join up by the volute, creating a new, solid pegbox? Or do you feel that's too invasive for this instrument?

[Thomas Erickson]

Running the graft all the way up there seems like a smooth maneuver but it looks like something has to be done with the back of the pegbox up top as well, yes? I think I'd want to double the whole thing if so - perhaps in two operations, top (scroll/half pegbox) and bottom (half pegbox/neck graft)?

How about spiral bushing the peg holes too, long as we're at it...

Anyway, nice clean-up job so far!

[Matthew Tucker]

Have to admit that my strategy is not yet fully crystallised. I wanted to see how well the joint cleaned up first. Yes it will need re-cheeking and I'm fortunate that it isn't heavily figured wood, so the repair may be well hidden if I do it well. 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.

Over here one of my biggest challenges is to find the wood for these repairs. If I'm going to use maple I have to find and import a neck block. If I use beech or sycamore, I may be able to find something here. Or I could use another wood entirely. Obviously beech was original. Any suggestions for a good supplier?

Also important to remember this is a practical restoration to a working bass condition. There isn't the budget for an "as original" restoration. I really won't be able to save much if any of the original varnish. And since I am replacing the neck block, we may be converting this to a removable neck, too.

[Steve Alcott]

If it were my bass, I'd do what I did with my former Olde Tyrolean; repair the scroll, hang it on the wall, and install a new neck including scroll. The original scroll on my bass had a lot of character, but had been broken several times in several different ways; when the tuner plates were removed, it fell apart. In this case, practicality won out over sentiment.

[Matthew Tucker]

Yes, that is an option I am considering too :-)

[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...

[Matthew Tucker]

no the conical bushing removes a large conical section of wood on the inside of the cheek at each hole and then filled with a significant plug of new wood, then re-drilled. I doubt if a spiral bushing would do anything. usually they're just for reducing the size of the hole a bit.

[Thomas Erickson]

Well, I hear the spiral bush is a good solution when the cheek is cracked through the peg hole. Clearly more significant on an instrument with a true peg that has to press in, sure, since it will perpetually open the crack - but also seems like a sound idea to me when we'd be talking about placing it inside of a plain bush anyway and the top half of the pegbox is broken off at the holes... Makes sense to me to put the pegbox as solid as possible with new wood, and then reinforce the spot where it broke (the holes) even more; clearly the original wood in that spot is less than ideal or the neck would have broken first and spared the pegbox, yes?

(Pure speculation of course - I'm not qualified! )

[Matthew Tucker]

i have never done a spiral bushing but as far as i know the technique uses a thin spiral of woodshaving in the hole. I fail to see how this can be a structural repair on a head this size!

Possibly better is to plug the hole, drill out a larger hole say 1" and plug THAT, then rebore the shaft hole in the new wood. The conical bushing is a variant of this and I think nicer.

But I'm not sure yet that's what's needed here.

[Thomas Erickson]

Nor do I know what is ideal in this situation.

But the deal with the spiral bush is all in the grain orientation - you're placing the long grain of the "slice" perpendicular to the grains that have split across the peg hole. So you have the wood fibers supporting the first (expanding) load of the peg, rather than the glue joint between grains.

[Steve Alcott]

It's been a while, and I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering how it's going.

[Matthew Tucker]

OK so I've been a bit busy ... and now I need TWO pairs of specs for this sort of work



remember this? The cracked block needed to be replaced.







some twit used nails in the top edge of the ribs.



more ironwork for the collection!



A lot of steam, water, heatgun, leverage and cursing later, the block came away with the ribs unscathed.

[Matthew Tucker]

remember what it used to be like in there?



YUK! All that black crap had to be wetted, heated and scraped off.





here is the new block being glued in with temporary cauls.





Yes its a multi-piece block.

You can see how the upper edge has been damaged by those pesky nails.



I'll have to trim those rib edges off neatly. I'll lose about a cm off the top of the original rib, but it is no big consequence.

The block is intentionally oversized and will need some trimming too.

[Steve Alcott]

Thanks, Matthew-I'm sure I'm not the only one who's fascinated by and learning a great deal from your account of this major restoration.