Double bass rebuild - not for the faint of heart!

[The Guitar Weasel]

So about 9 months ago I became a double bass player - I bought a second hand Stentor '1950' bass in a very fetching blonde - and was lucky enough to get a spot in an established rockabilly band within four months of starting to play. That's not some prodigy genius, that's hours and hours of practise and 40+ years as a guitarist. 

All in the garden was rosy ... well, I kept looking at eBay adverts for double basses - not sure why - I mean one 'musical wardrobe of doom' in ones lounge is a big enough statement 😁 Luckily my wife thinks upright basses are lovely bits of furniture as well. 

These other basses I looked at were all fixer-uppers, as I am fairly handy - owning a guitar pickup company helps ... as does a father and grandfather who were engineers. However they all were a bit pricey considering they were unknown quantities two or three hundred quid is a lot to shell out for something with no bridge, a fallen soundpost and poorly done neck repairs ... so I kept my hand away from the bidding button.  

Then late one evening I saw it - bass shaped standing by some wheelie bins in the pic - no idea what size 3/4 or whatever and £49 with no bids ... er ...and no scroll and peg box either!!! 

So for fifty quid it came home with me ...

 

 Well, I determined it was old 3/4 (but quite dainty and slim compared to my Stentor) plywood  ... Czechoslovakian ... I think, not valuable in the least (especially wrecked) with a painted (and thoroughly manky) fingerboard. A perfect candidate for fixing up.  My first thought was to graft on a scroll and pegbox, but the guitar builder in me reckoned it was probably easier - and a more sound job long term - to replace the whole neck. I know - I'm a certifiable loony - but after I copped a look through the unoccupied end pin hole and one look at the two honking great wood screws holding the neck (as well as god knows what glue) I thought 'no ... that there neck has got to come off, and if it's going to come off I'll replace it with a new one - and fit an ebony board -   

 

So here are a couple more views before I started .

..

... nope the flame on the neck (like that on the body) is painted on. Normally if this were a guitar I'd have used hot water to soften the glue and with palate knives and wiggling I'd have removed the neck intact. The fly on the ointment here are those two big screws ... so butchery was needed sadly. 

Plenty of measuring up first ... 

This is where I planned to get the ball rolling by removing the neck along the dotted line

 

My Japanese Ryoba saw made fast work of the sad bit ...  and left this As soon as I saw evidence of PVA bodging adhesive I went for isopropyl alcahol rather than hot water to start freeing up the bits of neck I'd sectioned out (being careful to avoid where I thought the screws were. 

 and there she blows and it's bloody HUGE - the plan had been to wind it backwards into the body ... but it was so loose it just fell in.

Lots more dribbled alcohol (sounds like my weekends) and the other one put in an appearance 

Messy ... but we can fix that. Extraneous holes to fill with properly cut wood plugs (not dowels) and loads of claggy white glue and hide glue to clear up. 

I measured the heel block depth and cut a plug for the central slot/hole from a part salvaged from the old neck heel ... and will cut two more for the old screw holes.

 

So for those that are interested ... I have ordered a neck and fingerboard from China maple/ebony  ... it'll be interesting to check out the quality ... I bought some tuners for my Stentor and they were amazing for the price. I made a dummy neck 'plug' so I can re build the sides of the neck pocket against a 100% square sided former. 

 

 

and this plug will be used in drilling for the neck bolts ... yes this bass will sport a bolt on neck 

 

More soon. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stub Mandrel]

Following...

[NickA]

Fantastic.  Love a bass project.

 

My 1890s German bass had the same neck damage (it fell over).  Also had ( mysteriously) some big brass screws holding the neck to the dovetale bit at the bottom.  New neck, inc grafting the original scroll onto it, cost ( the insurance) £4000! 

 

Great to see someone doing a DIY .

[Beedster]

Great thread, I'll be watching keenly as I have a similar project here, albeit one that's on ice

 

[Hellzero]

Following too.

[fiatcoupe432]

Great stuff. Looking forward to see the finish product

[The Guitar Weasel]

11 hours ago, Beedster said:

Great thread, I'll be watching keenly as I have a similar project here, albeit one that's on ice

 

Looks like our basses had the attention of similar 'repairers'. I think someone has stacked up your neck heel to try and increase the overstand but that looks like a different evolutionary stage to the 'bodger with a bottle' and an unhealthy liking for the white stuff! I discovered from a luthier friend of mine that Isopropyl alcohol has a de-polymerising effect on PVA adhesive and returns it to semi gloopy white bogey state that is pretty easy to just scrape off. It also has an effect on hide glue and shellac varnish, so care needs to be taken you don't get it were it orta not be got 😁 I had to accept that there might be a tiny bit of delamination in the extreme ends of the plywood sides where they meet the neck pocket as I had to use a fair bit of alcohol to get under the joint- actually the damage was miniscule (considering I probably used a half a teacup full of Isopropyl), and a bit of hot hide glue rubbed in there when I re line the cheeks of the neck pocket will sort that fine. Good luck with yours ... any technical help I can provide just hit me up. 😄  

[Beedster]

3 minutes ago, The Guitar Weasel said:

Looks like our basses had the attention of similar 'repairers'. I think someone has stacked up your neck heel to try and increase the overstand but that looks like a different evolutionary stage to the 'bodger with a bottle' and an unhealthy liking for the white stuff! I discovered from a luthier friend of mine that Isopropyl alcohol has a de-polymerising effect on PVA adhesive and returns it to semi gloopy white bogey state that is pretty easy to just scrape off. It also has an effect on hide glue and shellac varnish, so care needs to be taken you don't get it were it orta not be got 😁 I had to accept that there might be a tiny bit of delamination in the extreme ends of the plywood sides where they meet the neck pocket as I had to use a fair bit of alcohol to get under the joint- actually the damage was miniscule (considering I probably used a half a teacup full of Isopropyl), and a bit of hot hide glue rubbed in there when I re line the cheeks of the neck pocket will sort that fine. Good luck with yours ... any technical help I can provide just hit me up. 😄  

 

I think we need to form a support group  

 

All joking aside, many thanks, I'll bee keeping a very keen eye, I really do need to get started on mine and your thread is just the catalyst I needed 🙏

[The Guitar Weasel]

I think the secret is breaking things down into manageable chunks. 'Today I'll get the neck heel cleaned up' for example ... that means you don't overload yourself. I'm learning tons of stuff for this project. In the past for guitar and electric bass building I've always used urea formaldehyde resin glues like Cascamite (or the two pack version Cascaphen) or Aliphatic resin: the good old standby Titebond. For this project I will be using proper hide glue ... the learning curve may be steep.  

This sub £30 Amazon wax pot however makes a great glue kettle ... I've been lucky with this one ... the thermostat and the scale around the temperature knob actually agree, and 62c is actually 62c - or about 145 degrees F - the perfect heat for hide glue.    

  

[Stub Mandrel]

3 hours ago, The Guitar Weasel said:

I think the secret is breaking things down into manageable chunks. 'Today I'll get the neck heel cleaned up' for example ... that means you don't overload yourself. I'm learning tons of stuff for this project. In the past for guitar and electric bass building I've always used urea formaldehyde resin glues like Cascamite (or the two pack version Cascaphen) or Aliphatic resin: the good old standby Titebond. For this project I will be using proper hide glue ... the learning curve may be steep.  

This sub £30 Amazon wax pot however makes a great glue kettle ... I've been lucky with this one ... the thermostat and the scale around the temperature knob actually agree, and 62c is actually 62c - or about 145 degrees F - the perfect heat for hide glue.    

  

 

When I was in the scouts, every year we had to collect holly to decorate the church. We started by chopping branches from lots of male trees with their spikier leaves. Then an awful afternoon using hot hoof glue to attach red cotton wool berries.

 

I can still smell that stench...

[The Guitar Weasel]

10 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

When I was in the scouts, every year we had to collect holly to decorate the church. We started by chopping branches from lots of male trees with their spikier leaves. Then an awful afternoon using hot hoof glue to attach red cotton wool berries.

 

I can still smell that stench...

Think of it as the smell of proper repairs - and it'll soon smell like Chanel No 5 

[Mediocre Polymath]

This bass looks very similar to my own, which also had an at-home neck reset. I'll post my own build/rebuild diary here at some point.

[The Guitar Weasel]

2 hours ago, Mediocre Polymath said:

This bass looks very similar to my own, which also had an at-home neck reset. I'll post my own build/rebuild diary here at some point.

Excellent 😁

[Happy Jack]

Kinell mate ... you like a challenge, don't you?

 

[The Guitar Weasel]

20 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

Kinell mate ... you like a challenge, don't you?

 

A challenge would be building a double bass from scratch ... someone has already done the hard work here 😁

[The Guitar Weasel]

Quite excited ... a big package arrived from China 8.00 this evening. ... neck, fingerboard, bridge, end spike, tuners, the whole lot to do the bass all in one. 
What was I expecting? Well £200 spent on the whole shebang - what was advertised as 'ebony fingerboard' and 'nice maple neck'. I was dubious. 
What did I get ... well amazingly ... a bloody great chunk of what appears to be rather nice ebony. Sure there are some slightly lighter streaks - but really, barely visible. 
The neck is indeed maple, and even has very faint flaming. Sure it's fairly roughly finished and needs a fair bit of sanding all over, but it's really not bad at all. 
They have left so much spare wood on the neck heel that it's going to be a fair old job trimming it all down accurately - but better too much than too little I suppose 

Photos tomorrow. 

[The Guitar Weasel]

And here are the the goodies  😃
The ebony has a couple of shiny spots from rubbing on the packaging, and needs a good oiling, but it's great quality. 
The neck needs it's gluing face with the fingerboard given a super light going over with a jointing plane as it's almost but not quite rough thicknessed/sawn. 
The bridge is okay for 'setting up' but is a bit thin and weedy for a rockabilly machine - still that's a simple fix. 
The tail-piece is actually carbon fibre, as is the end pin and assembly - a but modern for what I'm doing, but again, okay to set the bass up with. The machines are 'okay' and may get replaced down the line. The nut wasn't in the kit strangely ... but cot me £8.00 from a specialist double bass supplier.  

An issue I can see is that the ends pin hole has been reamed out about 1/8th inch oversize - so one job will be to make a liner from mahogany or similar to tighten that up.

The neck heel is nearly twice as thick as it needs to be, and is designed for a bass without sloping 'shoulders' like my Stentor - so it has a neck set angle cut in. That can be sawn down to 90 degrees as this bass has the neck set angle baked into the body joint. 

My lunch hour today was devoted to cutting a new laminated mahogany filler strip (laminated using my new hide glue pot - more about that shortly) and cutting a maple neck joint cheek. This is a slow and careful process with lots of checking along the way. 

So it was like this ...

All that crap was cleaned out  and a mahogany filler and maple cheek fabricated 

 

Trial fit ... to be glued up tomorrow and the other side prepped - 

 

yummy .... 

 

So hide glue - why on earth have i never used it before????? It's so easy once you have a heated pot - it just sits there till you need it smelling faintly of doggy chews - thin it with hot water if it starts getting too thick - wop it on and clamp quickly - it's reversable, organic, sets up WAY hard and is proper innit. 

Warm both bits to be glued with a hair dryer if you want more clamping time ... I will never go back to Titebond I swear. 

More soon ... 

Edited yesterday at 15:14 by The Guitar Weasel

[bass_dinger]

I can't get over how short the neck is, relative to the size of the body and the headstock (peg box?).

 

I see, from the photo of the intact bass, that the fingerboard is where the length is.

 

I was also amazed at the price of the nut - just £8!

[The Guitar Weasel]

Yep double bass necks are super short ... so unless you have a cutaway double bass ... it's thumb-over up the dusty end! 

Yep I was a bit amazed at the price of a nice ebony nut too! 

[Owen]

On 02/05/2025 at 16:31, The Guitar Weasel said:

I bought some tuners for my Stentor and they were amazing for the price.

Interesting. Any links or pics?

Thanks

[Paddy Morris]

Blimey!  Just, blimey!

[The Guitar Weasel]

8 hours ago, Owen said:

Interesting. Any links or pics?

Thanks

Yep I must get around to sorting those plugged screw holes properly - but it's my gigging bass 🙂

Anyway these are almost steampunk in their look, heavy and smooth operating. I have to say they look pretty much hand made. 

They are about £55 plus carriage on Aliexpress or there's an eBay seller with them for about eighty quid all up. 

Bear in mind they will add literally several pounds to your bass ... but I look at it this way ... if we worried about bulk and weight we'd be mandolin players!  

[Owen]

Fair play, those look great and if they function well then you are ahead of the game. My bass would need some intense refinishing on the headstock to make them work, but the ones I have rattle and are ........ not aesthetically pleasing. Thanks.

 

For anyone else wondering

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/365106722801?_skw=Double+Bass+mAchine+heads&itmmeta=01JTQEHN08J5M25206R42QRCPW&hash=item55020e77f1:g:8gIAAOSwrZVm2r58&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA0FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1fhSXTR5Srbf%2BCuT9UGOVXQcC8OlSQhuoT82xWLRwddAqMmMO9bQOGaojMzsxWczyMtu%2FKkToWrnEX0CBGbMJI1N2otvyU1GxJ9DL4Z7ppMpd9jZwBKlJeRKgaeBXeaurNqcB3TfrEZNgj5q6l8R%2Boiu%2BQTmJ6cMr1RACOMtJT7lvgt%2BIrxDbZ%2BK69U5ipk6jtk%2Bbf0m5QNNu2Xnmnl7zezhEzxkCCdkF7N7xy%2BDqluJiIVCaR2uXNqesB%2BMeroDwY%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR6TQxu7VZQ

Edited 7 hours ago by Owen

[The Guitar Weasel]

First view of the neck offered up ... and yes there's a lot of that heel that needs to come off!!! 

 

[The Guitar Weasel]

With things progressing at a pace my mind is turning to the finish ... while the front doesn't look too bad in the pics the varnish on the back has split along the grain lines of the wood, and the external 'linings' all round the bass are mostly worn through the varnish to bare wood ... in fact to a point where in some areas one can collect a free splinter to an unwary finger. Re varnishing wouldn't be a huge deal - given the work I'm already doing - or even spraying a finish ... the big however is  not knowing exactly what the existing finish is, stripping it will be a. difficult and b. a lottery. Alcohol seems to soften the finish as stands, so it could be some form of spirit varnish or even a nitro based lacquer. Sanding will be bloody difficult in the body cut-outs and I can't really see a power sander option for those areas. Chemical stripping with a dedicated paint stripper can attack glue so that's not really an option I fancy ... on the other hand ... ten years with a cork sanding block I'm also a bit wary of 🤣

 

Suggestions on a postcard please ... 

Edited 1 hour ago by The Guitar Weasel