My Old Kay Q?

[tomshepp]

Hi folks,
I have a 39' Kay M1W that a luthier advised adding a new fingerboard to. I'm not sure what kind of wood it is now but I doubt it's ebony. It is also fairly thin and I would want to replace it with a quality piece of ebony. My question is: would a new board improve the sound? I understand the way it plays would improve, but would it affect sound. Is that more a matter of setup? Also, does changing the board affect the value of the bass? If so, how? Any help is much appreciated.
Tom

[toman]

In my experience, yes, if you have a maple (or some other) fingerboard, switching to a good ebony one will improve the tone. And improving the tone and playability of the bass will increase it's value, particularly in a bass that's not worth much (dollar wise) to begin with.

[tomshepp]

Originally Posted by toman

In my experience, yes, if you have a maple (or some other) fingerboard, switching to a good ebony one will improve the tone. And improving the tone and playability of the bass will increase it's value, particularly in a bass that's not worth much (dollar wise) to begin with.

Is my bass not worth much? I know it's all relative, but I paid $1700. a few years ago.
Tom

[drurb]

Originally Posted by tomshepp

Is my bass not worth much? I know it's all relative, but I paid $1700. a few years ago.
Tom

Personally, I would take $$$ out of the discussion and reinterpret the comment to say that a quality fingerboard will result in a greater relative improvement on an instrument that is of lesser quality. Of course, $$$ are, in general, highly correlated with quality. IMO, Kays are an exception in that their mystique and niche-value result in them commanding higher prices than are commensurate with their quality as instruments. In terms of quality alone, I'd pay $1800 for this any day of the week rather than $1700 for a Kay. Now, if I were thinking in investment terms and counting on the Kay mystique to result in appreciation, I might choose differently. Personally, my goal is to get the most bass for the money. By the way, I had a Kay for about 30 years!

[mesmithnm]

If your Kay is in good shape (never had the neck broken or the top kicked in, for instance) you didn't pay too much in the sense that you could get your money back out of the bass. This bass was the subject of a recent thread http://cgi.ebay.com/KAY-VINTAGE-UPRI...QQcmdZViewItem
and it went for a little over $1800 bucks. The bigger question might be whether or not you like the sound of your bass. My understanding is that the Kay likely has a rosewood fingerboard now - the harder ebony board would likely give it more presence and sustain. (Note : I've read here recently that many of our luthier members are out at some show/conference - you might want to wait till they get back on TB and get some good advice ) So, if you like your Kay now you'll probably like it a little better w/a new fingerboard - if you don't really like it now, sell it before you put any money into it and you could probably get back what you paid and put that money toward a different bass. I think if you start to get $2500 bucks and up invested in your Kay, you'll never get that money back out of it. Then again, I have a German carved factory bass where I spent $2k on repairs (involved taking the top off, etc) a couple of years ago. Considering the purchase price of that instrument, I probably couldn't get my money back out of it. But my decision was made because I really liked that bass and we have a long history together. I haven't regretted it.

On the other hand, I think about selling my Kay about every other time I play it - it's set up well and sounds OK, but we don't have that history together and I think about how I could take that money as a down payment on a New Standard or such. So, this is a long and rambling reply that says I'm mostly on board with drurb's reply.

[drurb]

Originally Posted by mesmithnm

... So, this is a long and rambling reply that says I'm mostly on board with drurb's reply.

Likewise!

[msw]

I have had two Kays ( a 1956 C-1 and a 1957 M-1) which I hired Mark Carlsen to put thick ebony boards on. One of them utilized a graduated shim to increase the overstand and the other Mark pulled the neck forward about a 1/4" which increased the overstand. In both cases doing these modifications made measurable improvements to the sound (sustain to a degree and a slightly better tone) and to the overall feel of the necks. However in both cases they also continued to have the sound characteristics of a plywood bass, though improved. My conclusion after this expierence is that you do this to a Kay for the purpose of having a good outdoor/backup bass but you can't expect it to improve a Kay to the point that sounds like anything other than a really good Kay.

[tomshepp]

Thanks for the replies guys. Good food for thought.
Tom