jurassic bass

Some of you may already know that, due to recent damage, I have sent my bass of to Gary at Upton Bass for repairs. Gary runs a well-thought-of business and is an active participant in the Talkbass forums. He also sold me my Revolution Solo pickup with which I am extremely happy.

Once I confirmed that insurance would cover the loss, Gary sent down a Kolstein Trunk (for his Klotz – The bass mine is modeled after) in which I was to return the bass. Gary advised that I remove everything from the bass (most importantly strings), which meant knocking down and removing the soundpost. The removal of strings meant no tension on the top (so as not to exacerbate the structural problems) as well as on the extension.

My extension has the same chassis as this one, though a different stopping mechanism – it is the KCStrings extension. You can see a little wheel at the top around which the string double back to the tuning machine. This is held in place and falls out when the string is removed. So, I packed this up in a box along with my Laborie endpin, strings, KC Marvin Tailpiece, Revolution Solo Pickup, soundpost, etc. The box was in my car, ready for shipping that afternoon.

Now, I had just made a purchase from Lemur Music of some SuperSensitive Clarity rosin and some hide glue. Do you think you see where this is going? The hide glue was at home, but I had brought the rosin along to switch out at orchestra rehearsal. The tub in which the rosin came was cracked and, in a car under the hot Florida sun, oozed out of the container and onto my seat and this little metal wheel, which had fallen out of the box (I should have taped it up by then). In a hurry to make a class, I set the container upright, pried the rosin/wheel mass off the seat and placed it on top of the open rosin container. I think you know what happened next.

Upon returning to the car, I found the rosin had leveled itself back out, looking lovely as ever, but almost overflowing. Encased in it:

I busted out laughing. What else could I do? I didn’t realize Gary was going to put my bass together to check the setup before he started work (what was I thinking?), so I delayed the inevitable freeing of this object from it’s synthetic tomb. I tried freezing, melting, and scraping the stuff off to no avail. I finally sent it out with a thin film of rosin, assuming Gary would know what to do. I haven’t heard any complaints from him yet. I assume he’s on an island in the pacific somewhere, cloning my bass.