A broken bass (Warning: pictures not for the faint of heart)

dgelting · #1 06-15-2008, 03:28 PM

I'm just writing to share my woes with some other bassists.

To make a long story short, the bass I use for my rock playing and other loud situations (magnetic pickup, low action, etc) took a fall from standing position and broke in a horrible way.

It's a hybrid Goltz and Mayne from Chicago, 1964. The top is now in 3 pieces, the ply flat back is split all the way across where the back angles in towards the neck, and the sides have miscellanous damage.

It had it's share of problems before this happened, but it really did the job for the types of playing I used it for. I'm don't really know what I'll do with it. It'll be quite expensive for a professional to fix it, and I'd be better off putting that money towards another instrument. Is this the start of a long "learn bass lutherie" project for myself?

I'll be heading to Chicago later this week to check out what's in the shops there, maybe I'll drag the carcass along for the pros to look at. (Not that it's an easy thing to transport in this state - the neck is wobbly and I'm afraid I'll damage it more by hauling the instrument around)

JoeyNaeger · #2 06-15-2008, 04:03 PM

Wow, that's really terribly. I would be devastated if something like that happened to my Solano. I hope everything works out in the end.

Jake deVilliers · #3 06-15-2008, 04:23 PM

That looks very fixable dg, and probably for a lot less than than the cost of an equitable replacement.

Traumatic of course but....

Marcus Johnson · #4 06-15-2008, 04:35 PM

Yitch. That's ugly for sure. But I've seen lots worse than that, put back together and gone back to the front for more duty.

Bass luthiers amaze me... the way the good one can take a pile of matchsticks and reassemble them into a DB. One guy used to tell me to leave the room when he'd work on my basses.

**Matthew Tucker** · #5 06-15-2008, 04:37 PM

yeah for a start the ribs are intact, and the belly crack looks pretty clean. Was there a brace at the back-bend? looks like there was, once upon a time.

But maybe now you're going to have to make a decision whether now is the time to put a proper neck block in there!

GM60466 · #6 06-15-2008, 04:39 PM

YIKES! Bring it to Russ at Chicago Cello Werks

GM

Eric Rene Roy · #7 06-15-2008, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matthew Tucker

Was there a brace at the back-bend? looks like there was, once upon a time.

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t...g/DSCF1545.jpg

top left Matt!

bassteban · #8 06-15-2008, 05:14 PM

OW- my EYES!!!
Like a severed head rolling down the highway. You don't want to look, and yet...

dgelting · #9 06-15-2008, 05:37 PM

There is a piece of wood (I don't know the terminology) that goes over the break on the back side and that is intact. It's a ply back, so mating that together seems like it'll be harder than the top. Being that there is a "brace" right over that break, it seems like a person would make a clean straight cut on both sides of the break, cut another piece of wood to fill the gap, and glue it all to the "brace" piece.

The top is a clean break along the grain and should be able to be mated pretty cleanly with a good clamp setup.

As far as neck block goes, I don't know what a proper one should look like in the first place. It does have a neck joint that's different than any others I've seen. The sides join flush with the neck, there's no ridge where they meet. I'll attach a picture of the intact side of the neck. FYI, what looks like wood grain in the photo is just the shadow patterns of the flashlight I used to light it.

Good to hear that it may be worth fixing. I'll see what responce I get when I go to the Chicago area bass shops.

james condino · #10 06-15-2008, 08:12 PM

A half pound of hide glue, a little varnish; a good luthier will have that back in the game by the 4th of July. No need to stress or worry. It looks a lot better than some of the basket cases that folks have brought to me with the entire bass in parts stuffed into a hockey dufflebag.

j.
www.condino.com

Jake deVilliers · #11 06-15-2008, 08:35 PM

"A half pound of hide glue"

Hey James, you left out the mound of cleats!

hdiddy · #12 06-15-2008, 11:40 PM

And any linen for the rest of the cracks. Was it a good sounding bass to begin with? That's all totally repairable. A friend of mine just got his back from the lutheir - the top had caved in at the bridge only to reveal horribly done past repair jobs.

If the bass was good to begin with, it's probably well worth the effort. If you don't want to do the work then you could always see the carcass, there are others who might take up the task so long as you give them a decent discout for the broken bass.

**Matthew Tucker** · #13 06-16-2008, 12:01 AM

Stop me if you know this already.

If you slide your finger under the fingerboard all the way to the neck joint, it will probably end up wedged in there. That's the old way of doing it with a "blockless neck" made out of one piece of wood to which the ribs, front and back are attached.

It's probably just fine the way it is, but the modern practice is to bring the fingerboard joint out from the bass top by about 30mm. that's call the "overstand". Reduces string tension a bit and more importantly makes the upper reaches of the fingerboard easier to play. But to do that you need a new neck block, into which the neck is set with a mortise joint. No-one does the old way any more

New way looks something like this

(by the way, that's not a pine fingerboard screwed onto the neck there ...)

Jake deVilliers · #14 06-16-2008, 12:17 AM

Sure looks like one to me - one with the 'giant screw' repair.

**Matthew Tucker** · #15 06-16-2008, 12:25 AM

Hmmmm ... yeah it does look like that, doesn't it

If I hit one of those when shooting a board I would NOT be in a good mood.

I did notice some nice screw holes in the end of the Goltz fingerboard, too ...

Standalone · #16 06-16-2008, 12:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matthew Tucker

I did notice some nice screw holes in the end of the Goltz fingerboard, too ...

... magnetic pickup mount?

johnpaulbass · #17 06-16-2008, 12:46 AM

WilliamB · #18 06-16-2008, 03:25 AM

oooh.
I Know it's fixable - and I'm not a luthier. seems like that is what that instrument is about - even more character for you!
Hope you do fix it and not replace it.

David Potts · #19 06-16-2008, 06:30 AM

Save whales! Plant them in the ground!!

Same goes for basses. Good luck! Advice above to fix the bass is good.

DP

dgelting · #20 06-16-2008, 04:36 PM

Thanks guys.

As for the holes in the fingerboard, yes - it's the mount for the magnetic pickup. I tried heavy-duty velcro, but that wouldn't work all of the time (funny when the pickup falls off in the middle of a song) and it is really bouncy. You'll be plucking and rocking out and the pickup is shaking to and fro -it makes for a tremelo effect. So, not an ebony fingerboard anyway, and the holes were drilled.

I'm now taking a break from engineering a way to mount that pickup on another one of my basses without drilling holes. I'll be playing this weekend using my "nice" bass for the kind of thing that my broken one would have done. I just tried the velcro method again somehow thinking that it would work better. It didn't. I'm trying to make some sort of a clamp out of spare parts I have around the house (wouldn't want to go to the hardware store and buy anything.....). Good thing I'll see my father tomorrow - he can build anything and has way more "spare parts" lying around to dig thru.

As far as how much I liked the bass in the first place - I like it enough to make sure that it'll be playable again, but it's more sentimental than "sound". This instrument was being used as a tool to push sound thru effects and a loud amp. The acoustic sound was not as much of a factor as you may think. I think that it would be possible for me to do it myself and use this as a learning tool. That said, I'll still show it to some pros and see how much time they think they'd have to spend on it and weigh the costs.

The trick is that it was never the most solid of instruments, and many, many repairs have been done to it over the years. Before I even got it, it was very worked on. There is linin covering most of the area of the sides. Since I've owned it, the endpin area has had to get completely rebuilt (but seems to me to be quite solid now - see pics)

There's one nasty crack on the lower side that I've had a hard time repairing, I think due in part to the rigidity of the endpin block repair. That crack came from someone tripping over the bass while it was laying on it's side on the bandstand at a tavern. Maybe I could repair that proper if I take the bass apart some.

The seam on one side (between it and the back) would often come undone, and you see the streaks of liquid hide glue from my many seam fixes. (since joining talkbass I have learned that that glue isn't that great. Future fixes would be done with more care and research)

The bridge I've been using with it wasn't very good, and the fingerboard needed some dressing or replacement.

All that said makes it sound like a bad bass, but I actually really liked it and I've played some great music with it. The couple of times I ended up using it for classical, the other bassists in the section liked it too, and it wasn't even set up for that stuff at all.

I have the feeling that I will end up getting another bass for the time being. This will be with the thoughts that I can sell it after a while if I decide that this broken one will be my workhorse again. That'll let me take my time figuring out what to do with this whole thing. It will definitely be repaired in one way or another. If I take the crazy decision to attempt a repair myself, I'll be sure to start a thread detailing my journey.