{"id":4467,"date":"2024-04-03T13:14:31","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T17:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monkeyguitars.ca\/?page_id=4467"},"modified":"2024-04-18T22:25:17","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T02:25:17","slug":"bass-project","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/monkeyguitars.ca\/?page_id=4467","title":{"rendered":"bass project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bass project<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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This Palatino bass needed some work: the obvious when you look at it would be the hole on the top plate, the butt end was pushed in a little – the end block had split and with the weight all being on that one spot, it should be expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The customer said that the neck actually separated from the body during a live show on him. It was fixed and two bolts were installed to help keep it together. In a way, it was a smart thing to do but the neck must have been install improperly as the neck is kind of cockeyed and the angle is off with measuring the old bridge height.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon putting a straight edge to the fingerboard, it needs some work. the relief could be much better and it is high at the bridge end of the fingerboard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides the repairs it needed, the customer said that the sound (through an amp) is very muddy. The bass is laminated and I am not too sure how that will affect the sound. Laminated wood instruments are usually of lower quality and with that, the sound out of such an instrument wouldn’t be the greatest in comparison to something that is made of high quality wood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*update April 4, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I managed to get the neck off and it looks like some of the Spruce used for the heel\/neck block was starting to rot. It might have been a good thing that work is being done on it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did do some research on setting up the bass for jazz playing and interestingly enough, the lower you set your strings, the straighter you actually want the soundboard – with the exception of the E string. The explanation was that the strings vibrate different when you use a bow and when you pluck it. However, that information was not said if it was for both nylon and metal strings on the bass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top plate came off without too much difficulty with the exception of where it joins at the heel. As expected, there was some wood tear out. I did glue back as many pieces as I could match. I may use some wood filler to get some other spots where it joins back to the ribs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*update April 5, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started to clean up the mortise and tenon for the neck joint. The mortise on the neck heel is a little off on the left to right angle. I cleaned up the pocket as well as I could with trying to not take off a lot of material. There is a lot of wood glue in there from the previous repair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the assumption that the fitment won’t be as good as it should be with this repair and the previous repair, wood glue will be used again to put it back together. Hide glue is supposed to be used for orchestral stringed instruments but it is too thin to fill gaps. Gaps is expected at this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*update April 16, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I finally got the reamer – on April 15. It did a nice job tapering the hole for the new carbon endpin that was purchased for the customer. After that was done, the top plate was glued back on. It turned out well considering I didn’t have any special jigs to do the gluing. The laminated saddle was also glued back on – I had taken it off after I got the top plate off because it was being pulled up and off the ribs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started to try to re align the neck back to the body – one of the issues the customer had pointed out was that when it was “fixed” the neck was angled towards one side. From seeing how the bottom of the heel was misaligned before I took the neck off, I knew the issue was with the “fix”. Another thing I found from researching was that the bridge was shorter than specifications which most likely means that the neck angle is off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering that the bass is not played with a bow, this may not necessarily be a bad thing but I can’t say how it actually affects everything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, I have tried to shim the neck at the back where it is abut with heel block: this solves the neck being angled to the one side. However, it seems that the neck may be off vertically. It looks like the neck is twisted – at least where it is setup right now. The scroll looks like it is twisted to one side. I think this is from one of the two bolts being gunned in to pull the neck into place. I have tapped the bottom with a small mallet but the second bolt hole is likely off as when it is being inserted through the wood, the neck will twist to let the bolt go into the pre drilled hole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am thinking that I will need to dowel at least one of the two holes and re drill the holes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*update April 18, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday, I worked on trying to line the neck up. When I held the neck up and tried to straighten it out, the centre of the neck\/fingerboard would be way out from the centre line of the body. The bottom of the heel is slightly rounded so trying to have it sit flat doesn’t work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ended up putting on the neck and tailpiece to string up the bass to see how everything else was. The neck angle was quite off resulting in super high string action. I added a 3mm shim to the back of the top of the heel to give it more angle and it worked out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today – April 18 – I finished the new bridge that was started the night before. A new soundpost was also made. I filled the big gouges in the side of the neck pockets with wood filler. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, the bass has been strung up with loose tension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

it will be brought to full tension tomorrow. The customer will come by to test out his bass and I can make some adjustments if needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bass project This Palatino bass needed some work: the obvious when you look at it would be the hole on the top plate, the butt end was pushed in a little – the end block had split and with the weight all being on that one spot, it should be expected. The customer said that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4467","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monkeyguitars.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monkeyguitars.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monkeyguitars.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monkeyguitars.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monkeyguitars.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/monkeyguitars.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monkeyguitars.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}