matthew wengerd|bassist

It’s been a bit more than a month since I parted ways with my bass so she could get fixed. I posted some pictures of the instrument, post lobotomy, and now have what should be the penultimate post in this saga.

The guys at Upton have done an excellent job of keeping their www.stringrepair.com site up-to-date with pictures of my bass in progress. I have added some of these to my Flickr page to share here. If you are a gear-head like me, you might find these photos fascinating. Otherwise, I’ll have more updates up for you soon.

After repairing the damages corner and doubling the edges of the table, the top gets glued back on. What you are looking at is several dozen string-instrument clamps, made of cork-lined wood tensioned by a bolt and wingnut.

The fingerboard was then removed.

After discussing my thoughts on the sound of the instrument, Gary and I decided to replace the fingerboard with a longer, stiffer one to afford me a more percussive playing position. The fingerboard is getting the Upton setup.

You can see here the difference between the old shape of the saddle and the new shape Eric carved. It’s primarily aesthetic, but a nice touch none-the-less.

A normal tailpiece is way too short for my bass, so the Upton guys made a new one for me. I was using the Marvin tailpiece and Gary suggested I try a tailpiece with more mass to get me closer to the sound I want. I already told you that I liked what the Marvin tailpiece did to my sound, so I wait with baited breath to hear what this will do to my sound.

That’s a double dose of Eric working his magic on my tailpiece.

This is the repair; post-shaping, pre-finish. Allowing the wood to get a little “dirty” will make the finish less conspicuous.

And here you can see the doubled edge, designed to reinforce the slab-cut top in this vulnerable area (the shoulders).

This shop delivers. What a unique tailpiece!

If all goes according to plan, I will have my bass mid-week. I cannot wait to hear her!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 21st, 2007 at 9:26 pm and is filed under Double Bass, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.