Double bass rebuild - not for the faint of heart!

[Stub Mandrel]

What do you feel about the smell of acetone?

[The Guitar Weasel]

4 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

What do you feel about the smell of acetone?

It makes me want to avoid walking past any of the (numerous)'nail bars' on my was home from the workshop for fear I freak out! Because I have five litres of the fecking stuff to get through AND I HATE IT!!!!!! 

[alyctes]

On 16/05/2025 at 20:15, The Guitar Weasel said:

One issue that has been highlighted is how bodged the previous neck re-glue was and how 'out' the original neck pocket was built. I wondered why the neck appeared to have been glued in without being fully seated in the pocket - in other words glued to the sides but not even touching in a lot of the bottom of the pocket. Well that would appear to have been a bodged attempt to face the neck properly down the centre line of the body. with the new neck properly seated and its mating face at exactly 90 degrees in all directions the neck and the fingerboard (strapped on with tape for the test) point way too far over to the bass side f hole. The whole neck pocket must be out of true with the centre line. The solution is to plane and use a cabinet scraper to deliberately take the back of the heel down on one side - thus pointing the neck/fingerboard once more along the centre line. 

 

 

If I read this correctly, the bass was never really a usable instrument before, with the neck being so massively out of alignment. 

Therefore, you have increased the number of playable double basses in the world by exactly one.  Kudos to you

[The Guitar Weasel]

15 minutes ago, alyctes said:

 

If I read this correctly, the bass was never really a usable instrument before, with the neck being so massively out of alignment. 

Therefore, you have increased the number of playable double basses in the world by exactly one.  Kudos to you

Thank you.

Well by the time it got to me for 49 quid some joker had knocked the scroll/pegbox off so I couldn't say how awful it was prior to me replacing the neck ... but I think it would have been pretty dreadful. If you factor in the lack of 'coupling' of a neck joint not fully pushed home when glued (are you listening to me Gibson) then I think it probably sounded as bad as it played! 

Really the whole idea here was to take an entirely written off bass ... and make it giggable. 

When I strung it up the other week ... I could have put my Rockabilly Pro preamp and pickups on and gigged it ... it would have looked horrible ... and the neck was like a cricket bat (wide end) but I could have done it. 

 

So yes ... the net double bassage of the world has gone up by one 😁 

 

I'm ridiculously sentimental about musical instruments - especially as I spend much of my working life making old pickups live again - and I wasn't about to see this old girl turned into a 'sign' as the owner suggested or a wall cupboard.

It needed to make music again - and it will.