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Double Bass Custom Scrolls?

#2
Here's the "scroll" grafted on my 30's German fatback.
 

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#4
I carved this guy for a local bassist years ago. His old Bohemian bass bought at Hammond-Ashley in about 1999 had a laminated oak head on it with a later modification where someone lacking a saw had used a drill and then a rasp to make a 'seat' for a sort of tiki head. Pretty rough, especially the very punky ancient oak which kept falling apart on meeting with door frames. He finally smashed it so thoroughly that I had to make a new scroll, and he wanted something fitting for 'Eugene' (his name for the dude), while bearing in mind a possible future C-extension. I found a piece of Eastern maple quite closely matched to his slightly odd maple neck and did a French graft and carved a torso and arms for the guy, doing the roughing out at home, then most of the carving while on ferry rides and on my favourite island, Hornby, sitting in the market drinking wonderful espresso and enjoying the honeysuckle blossoms... That was one of the most fun bass repairs I've ever been asked to do. He never got around to having me make the extension. I put a boxwood beer glass in Eugene's hands as a place-holder. The bass got sold in Texas while he was finishing up the university program there and that bass has been featured in another thread here a couple of years ago. Anyway, this is Eugene. Nice abs, eh? The new string pegs are turned of a nice piece of lignum vitae, should last a century or more without squeaking.

Eugene.jpg
 
#5
Oh yeah, speaking of what's 'not for me'... I played 'cello in a string orchestra for a couple of seasons where the guy next to me had this harsh looking old bearded guy for a scroll on his old German 'cello. Thing gave me the creeps. Beautifully carved, full of character, but it felt like there was this angry little man sitting just at the edge of my peripheral vision all the time. Spooky.

The scroll on Kelischek's one bass was a self-portrait. Remarkable piece of work that bass. Can't say I'm fond of the face on a bass, but it's an interesting feature on a very interesting big bass. That was intended as the first of a series of 10 themed basses.

And there's a bass owned by a Victoria, BC bassist I think which has a portrait of Gary Karr for a scroll topper. Not a big fan of that either, even though it's a decent likeness. It's a Jim Ham bass but I think he had someone else carve the face.
 
#9
notabene said:
Here's the "scroll" grafted on my 30's German fatback.
Click to expand...

This is really beautiful. I think that its hard to get a carved figure that looks good on a bass. To my mind they sometimes can be quite distracting, but this is just superb.

My only other worry would be that they may get damaged easier than a regular scroll.
 
#12
I like the Wandre basses, which sometimes had very unique scrolls. Not many pics floating around the net though; scroll at the 0:50 mark in this vid and at 1:05. I have to wonder why the vid has thumpin' pluckin' slab instead of a jazzy cool upright bass walking... :hmm:

Don't crucify me for posting this "scroll":

3762666578_92b3835fb6_z.jpg


And of course there's the King Double Bass (now defunct and no, not HN White. You can find the following on Google, maybe, if you're interested)
- devil with horns
- psychobilly head with mohawk
- skull
- Stray Cat (Lee Rocker Sig)
Invalid Link Removed
- Dragon (this looked really good/classy and the bass it was/is on)

There's a guy on another forum who carved himself a horsehead scroll. I'd like the head of a Falcon on an old Gretsch (which were purportedly made by Kay)...
 

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