http://www.violuthier.com/workinprogress.html
The photos document a refinishing (and major set-up) project Nick Roubas in LA did for me on a bass made by Auday-Giormnti in Buenos Aires.
The hybrid bass is copied from an instrument built in Vienna, 1890, by Wilhem Thomas Hjaura. It is a classic Viennese model with sloping shoulders, and was the first A&G bass ever shipped to the US a couple of years ago. The bass was very much a prototype, a carved/laminate version of their basic gamba model, designed for possible export to the US. This particular bass was shown to various dealers and luthiers for feed-back, which then went into subsequent models.
Auday-Giormenti currently sponsors the American String Teachers Association solo high school bass competition, and gives a revised model of this bass to the winning student, who plays his competition piece at the ASTA opening ceremonies on the A&G bass.
The top is made out of Hemlock; the back, Maple. The neck and sides are made of Guatambu, a Latin American wood to work with but rather heavy, and contributes to the overall weight of the bass (which has been addressed in later models). The purfling is inlaid. The fingerboard is Indian ebony, and the bridge Maple. The tuning machines are made and finished in the A&G workshop, and, again, they are working on a lighter model with a better mechanism. The bass came with two tailpieces, one of ebony and the other of Guayacan, a wood from Northern Argentina.
In order to keep the costs down on this bass, a sprayed-on nitrocellulocic varnish was used. This was the least satisfying element of the instrument. The bass given to this year's ASTA competition winner, had a deep, rich chocolate hand applied finish, and hand applied oil and spirit finishes are used on A&G high end basses, not yet available for export.
As I became more and more pleased with sound of the bass over its first year, I wanted to use it more and more in public. It always got great comments on its sound, but the finish did leave something to be desired.
I decided to take the bass to Nick (who had done some repairs on another bass of mine) because I had been impressed by the tone and finish of his hand-made violins - as well as his attention to detail on the other repairs.
Nick took great care with the instrument, scraping off the original varnish, and laying in coats of yellow, orange, red and brown to create a visually stunning bass that looks great and sounds even better. He thinned out the neck and shaped the fingerboard, reshaped the bridge, replaced the sound post and made various other adjustments that HUGELY improved the sound. The project took five months and was well worth the wait.
Our next project is turning an 1880's 5/8th, 3-string Tyrolean bass into what I'm sure will be a great 4-stringer (with a newly carved back). For more information about Nick's work see:
www.violuthier.com. For further information contact Adrian Giormenti at
info@auday-giormenti.com.ar
Louis
Bass details-
Playing string length : 42 1/8'' / 107 cm
Overall body length : 44'' / 111,7 cm.
Upper bout width : 19 3/4'' / 50,1 cm.
Center bout width : 14 1/2'' / 36,8 cm.
Lower bout width : 26 1/2'' / 67,4 cm.
Upper rib depth (not including top/back): 9'' / 23 cm.
