Whilst my son was practicing his double bass today the back of the instrument (lower bout) split apart from the lower rib. Some photos attached. I suspect this is going to be an extremely expensive repair. Any advice? Should I lower the string tension enough to hold the bridge in place to prevent further damage? Am I looking at hundreds of Pounds worth of repair costs for fixing this?
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Double Bass Back split apart from lower bout
- Thread starter Kaustav
- Start date
Drop the string tension. Get it to a luthier - hopefully it'll be a routine glue-and-clamp repair. Much better to have the seam pop than to have the back split - your bass did what it was designed to do under the circumstances.
Well, it has been in the house through the recent record heat wave in the UK. 40 degrees C in the house with no A/C.
Hmmm, that's uncomfortably hot, but glues typically hold until about 132F / 55.5C. Humidity might be the bigger issue.
That said, does your son play sitting down, leaning the double bass on the lower bout instead of the endpin?
That said, does your son play sitting down, leaning the double bass on the lower bout instead of the endpin?
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Not only NOT expensive…but you can fix it yourself. On the other hand, if you have a double bass luthier nearby, it wouldn’t hurt to have him or her take a look.
Does it close easily with finger pressure? If so, then it will close smoothly and easily under pressure of spool-clamps.
unless you are really gun-shy about working on the instrument, take the time and trouble to get a small quantity of hot hide glue granules, make some spool clamps, and take this first step in double bass Lutherie.
Does it close easily with finger pressure? If so, then it will close smoothly and easily under pressure of spool-clamps.
unless you are really gun-shy about working on the instrument, take the time and trouble to get a small quantity of hot hide glue granules, make some spool clamps, and take this first step in double bass Lutherie.
Good, and I didn't in any way mean that question as a slam, I know lots of bluegrass folks who play their double bass sitting and leaning it on the lower bout, most of the time after jamming for so many hours that they're playing in their sleep, and it's not unusual for them to have similar seam openings.
That is a good size gap. But as others have noted, perfectly normal for a bass over its life span. And no, not an expensive repair. I had two splits glued on one of my Basses last year.
It cost me $35.00. If it takes much pressure to close the gap, it might need some additional work, but nothing crazy money wise.
It cost me $35.00. If it takes much pressure to close the gap, it might need some additional work, but nothing crazy money wise.
+1 with @1st Bass
It’s a cheap and extremely common repair, at most places in the US right now it starts at about $50. In fact it’s so common that when I was in college we had a community kit to take care of it. A cake spatula to scrape the old glue off, hide glue granules, a pot, and some clamps. What you can do if you don’t want to do it yourself is just clamp it up until you can get it to someone to get fixed so it remains stable and doesn’t get worse.
These are the correct ones for the job;
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It’s a cheap and extremely common repair, at most places in the US right now it starts at about $50. In fact it’s so common that when I was in college we had a community kit to take care of it. A cake spatula to scrape the old glue off, hide glue granules, a pot, and some clamps. What you can do if you don’t want to do it yourself is just clamp it up until you can get it to someone to get fixed so it remains stable and doesn’t get worse.
These are the correct ones for the job;
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That looks like a budget Chinese plywood bass, so what should be a relatively cheap and easy repair could be complicated if the bass was assembled with synthetic glue, which it probably was.
It will go back together. The question is how much of a fight it will be.
The fact that the open seam blew that wide open would indicate that the components of the corpus were assembled under tension, which is why the glue failed.
It will go back together. The question is how much of a fight it will be.
The fact that the open seam blew that wide open would indicate that the components of the corpus were assembled under tension, which is why the glue failed.
One of the community orchestras I'm involved with bought a few of these cheap Chinese factory basses for their student orchestras. Everyone one of them has opened up like this - and has had problems with ill-fit end pins, cheap tuners etc; I have no problems with Chinese basses per see when they come from reputable dealers (Shen, Eastman, Neolson etc), but this stuff does more damage than not, turning kids off the instrument.
I know of a luthier who imported Chinese basses that were of better quality than this one. On arrival he would open up a fairly large portion of the seams and let the bass acclimate for a period of time before regluing. This seemed to help them stay solid. Whether that would help in a case like this I have no idea, but for a seam to open that much probably means there will be more episodes like this- another reason to have any bass checked out by someone who can give good advice about buying or not.
