Is the neck on the silent bass "modular" bolt-on? If the scroll on my BSX Allegro was broken like the OP's scroll, I'd just buy a new OEM neck...possibly salvaging the old FB for the new neck -- if that was an option.
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Double Bass Cracked Tuner Post
- Thread starter lightninz
- Start date
Titebond is not a good solution (in both senses of the word). Learning to use hide glue is not difficult, nor expensive. There are different "grades" of hide glue. A dealer (online) will probably define the different varieties for you. Whatever time you put in to learning to use hideglue will pay off for years to come.
Greg Clinkingbeard
Commercial User
This should work for you. Figuring out the right consistency and temperature is on you. I use small jars suspended in a pot of hot water, not too hot or you can kill it. Hit but nowhere near boiling. You want the glue to be nice and runny.
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Greg Clinkingbeard
Commercial User
I've used the Titebond (cold) Hide Glue, in the brown bottle, with success for emergency repairs on open seams. I've not tested it (on scrap wood) for it's strength and reversibility. I highly recommend this glue product, and a handful of spool clamps, and a sound post setter, if you are a bass teacher/clinician and visit a lot of schools and support orchestra festivals.
The titebond (cold) glue in the brown bottle plays a dirty trick on luthiers: it re-absorbs moisture out of the air and reconstitutes into syrup again. I have known several luthiers who learned this the hard way, watching their instruments disintegrate during a show in a humid location.
There in Colorado, you can get away with it, but if one of your instruments goes to Alabama, say...then there's gonna be trouble!
There in Colorado, you can get away with it, but if one of your instruments goes to Alabama, say...then there's gonna be trouble!
Greg Clinkingbeard
Commercial User
I assembled a mountain dulcimer from a kit 47 years ago, using that stuff. It was still together five years ago when it went to a new home. Still, I’ll use it occasionally on nuts and have recommended it to a customer for emergency seam repair, but I don’t trust it. The formaldehyde or whatever it is that keeps it in liquid form, well keeps it in liquid form. It never seems to completely dry hard and the melting point is pretty low. Chuck Traeger recommended adding a bit to hot glue to extend the working time when fitting bass bars and bracing. Not sure what to make of that.
It is, indeed, formaldehyde, which is a carcinogen. I used that reeking garbage on a back crack once. The first warm day, it liquified and ran out of the crack. Never again.
If adding liquid hide glue to the traditional stuff seems strange, true old school workarounds include adding urea to the glue pot to extend open time.
If adding liquid hide glue to the traditional stuff seems strange, true old school workarounds include adding urea to the glue pot to extend open time.
Greg Clinkingbeard
Commercial User
I’ve spent the better part of two days dealing with a bass on which the ribs came off the lower and one corner block. Somebody thought it was a good idea to use Titebond because it is strong. That will hold it! Well it didn’t. So the lower block spent some time on the belt sander and I spent way too much time on the ribs using a small plane and scraper. Hide glue would have come off in a few minutes with warm water.
Titebond is the bane of every reputable luthier’s existence, mostly because once it’s in the wood it can’t be removed when the repair fails. How might your repair fail? Maybe you don’t get things perfectly aligned when clamping. Maybe you did but while drilling for the dowel, it slips and opens up (but because your glue is so strong, it leaves a splintery mess rather than a clean break). Titebond used to advertise ‘Stronger than the wood itself’. We don’t want that.
Several years ago, when I used Titebond my mentor didn’t explain the ‘why’. He simply walked away and we didn’t speak for days.
It has its place. A repair that for whatever reason can’t be done with hide glue or is the last chance before the dumpster (very rare). If you care, do it right.
Titebond is the bane of every reputable luthier’s existence, mostly because once it’s in the wood it can’t be removed when the repair fails. How might your repair fail? Maybe you don’t get things perfectly aligned when clamping. Maybe you did but while drilling for the dowel, it slips and opens up (but because your glue is so strong, it leaves a splintery mess rather than a clean break). Titebond used to advertise ‘Stronger than the wood itself’. We don’t want that.
Several years ago, when I used Titebond my mentor didn’t explain the ‘why’. He simply walked away and we didn’t speak for days.
It has its place. A repair that for whatever reason can’t be done with hide glue or is the last chance before the dumpster (very rare). If you care, do it right.
Follow up question would be: "how is hide glue reversible and how is this property used in lutherie"?
A: it liquifies with heat -- either by accident in hot cars, or on purpose. Therefore luthier armed with heat guns, flat irons, and hot pads...is how a neck joint can be attacked.
A: it is water soluble before/after curing, which means that the neck joint can be coaxed open with hot water, steam, and/or IPO (Iso Propyl Alcohol) -- or all of the above.
A: theoretically, there is little to no wood lost during fixing of joinery done with HHG.
A: it is water soluble before/after curing, which means that the neck joint can be coaxed open with hot water, steam, and/or IPO (Iso Propyl Alcohol) -- or all of the above.
A: theoretically, there is little to no wood lost during fixing of joinery done with HHG.
Trouble in Alabama always is a possibility whether OP sends his bass here or not.
Adding urea to your handkerchief also is a useful workaround if you are attacked with chlorine or mustard gas.
Water bottle won't help. The British soldiers in the WWI trenches were instructed to pee into the hankee when under a gas attack if they could not get their gas masks on in time. WWI gas masks were REALLY primitive and awkward.
