Recent content by Rich Green

Make fewer clamps and glue in sections. You don't absolutely have to glue the entire joint at once. Glue one or two bouts at a time.

Perhaps its cheap because maybe it just doesn't sound great. It appears to be blockless, it may have a big ugly tone killing integral bass bar or a lousy neck block conversion. The blockless basses can have a pretty long mensure too (north of 43 inches). Of course I hope it's a gem and you get a...

If this is the bass in Lowell, it's about 15/20 minutes from both Mark Carlsen in Tewksbury and Volker Nahrmann in Billerica. I'd take the bass to either one to get an informed option.

I couldn't quite tell from the pics if the neck set was straight or just a funny camera angle. Oh and to keep piling on... an outside lining on at least one of the lower ribs is missing.

I can't see a pic or a link but I'm guessing it's the blonde bass. German or Czech with lots of issues. Scroll graft with a possibly crooked neck set. It's not uncommon to find integral bass bars in these basses so who knows what's going on there. It needs extensive re-edging and purfling. The...

I bought mine for short money in an unplayable condition just to bring it back to life. I'm about half way through the restoration... It's one of those projects where you do one repair and find five other things to fix. Like popping the top off I realized the end block was a full 1/8th inch...

Blockless wonder. German made late nineteenth/ early twentieth century. If it's anything like the one I have it has a pretty thinly carved top and a long mensure.

Like everyone has said proper clamps are super simple to make. Buy some 1/4-20 threaded rod, wingnuts and washers of the appropriate size, 3/4 plywood (though mdf/mdo works too). Cut the rod to a size larger than the ribs of your bass ( I think my clamps are mostly 10 inches long), make sure to...

Kay's and englel's have a dovetail at the neck block right? I just restored an old Czech/German bass with dovetailed neck mortise... There had been nearly a 1/4 inch of space near the button between the neck and block going down to about a 1/16 inch of gap near the top. It shimmed nice and easy...

Glad your family is ok. I hope the idiot kid is insured. If it really comes down to it I may be interested in the bass but I hope it doesn't have to go that way for you.

Looks like it would be worth the drive to give it a look. Could be a fun project.

That reminds me, I forgot to mention the bass bar is a really crude carved in place nightmare. Would need to be carved out and a new on fitted. Just gets better and better.

No problem guys!

I took a look at this bass in person the weekend before last. The photo's don't quite show how bad the problems are. The sound post crack is uglier than the pics show, and there is warping the length of the crack. It looked like it may have been strung up without a sound post. It looked like...