Cracking

[steviedee]

Every day there seems to be another crack on my old B&H bass, been using it at rehearsals for my prog band because it just sounds so good, I dunno what it is but it just has a great tone, even makes me sound okay.

Laid it down to pick up my electric and saw a big crack along the seam and a bunch of varnish flaking, I'm sure I can clamp and glue the seam but the bass seems to be disintegrating which is a great shame, I don't think I'll be taking it out of the house anymore!

[phil.i.stein]

that's sad news..

to brighten up your day i'll tell you of a guy i knew who once borrowed a double bass from a school where he'd done some teaching.

he fancied giving it the stray cat strut, and tried to stand on it whilst playing, promptly reducing it to so many matchsticks.

..perhaps i shouldn't have laughed but it was impossible not to.

[TPJ]

A seam crack should be easy to fix, preferably by a luther unless you have you hide glue technique together. This has happened a few times on my beast.

I look at a double bass as a living thing that needs constant maintainence, some frequent some infrequent.

[Beer of the Bass]

If you do try to glue the seam yourself, make sure you get hold of some hide glue, and read up on how to use it. Re-gluing top and back seams is not out of the scope of DIY, but clamping can be tricky. Gluing it with anything else causes all sorts of problems if the top ever has to be removed for repairs, and can actually increase the chance of cracks to the wood (as often when the wood moves, the hide glued seam will give way before the wood cracks).
If you're getting lots of open seams and cracks, the humidity in your house may be too low. It's worth getting a hygrometer to keep an eye on it, and humidifying if necessary.

[steviedee]

I've used hide glue a few times on various cracks and it's generally worked well, I have wondered about the humidity in the flat, though I live in Glasgow so you wouldn't imagine humidity would be a problem but it might be central heating.

[Guest Jecklin]

Central heating destroys double basses (and most other classical instruments).
I've suffered terrible winters in my room with no radiator on just to keep the bass safe.


A note on hide glue.
Pure beef gelatine granules are essentially the same thing, just refined to a much higher level (and is food safe etc)
Prepare it in exactly the same way you would as hide glue (ie thick solution warmed in a double tin to get it runny). The only down side is weight for weight it's more expensive. This is a relative term though as you are buying it in handy size sachets that are easy to store rather than a kilo of the stuff which if you are doing one seam repair a year is a waste as it will go off.