Hello hello! To date I have been playing an electric upright and after 6 years of denying myself the pleasure I finally got a an acoustic bass. Man am I happy. Its a Czech made ply bass imported under the name of British music store Boosey and Hawkes made sometime between the 60's and 90's. (more info is scarce) The bass is in pretty good condition and seems to have a shiny poly type finish, rosewood neck and came with a yucky adjustable footed bridge. With a bit of bravado I decided that I would do the work myself as the costs would be far lower.(no flames please, I built my EUB and have done a fair but of Guitar DIY) Thanks to some helpful posts on the setup sub-forum and a couple of days reading I felt okay to attempt it myself. I took a a train on a Saturday afternoon and got a beautiful ebony/brass endpin unit, bridge blank and set of adjusters from Tony at the Contrabass Shoppe. (Who deserves a medal for answering clearly novice questions respectfully and providing much appreciated advice and assistance that I cant go further into but which was very much above and beyond the call of duty so to say) So I went to work. Lots of work. I had to tool up and got a small drill press for drilling the adjuster holes, clamps, hand plane and other bits. It took ages to cut the bridge to size, drill and sand like a monkey for days at a time in the backroom cum workshop. I also had to cut the soundpost down, reset it as well as stripping and cleaning the tuners and widening the endpin hole for the new endpin. Happily it's finally cleaned up and restrung with a set of Spiro lights. Now I just have to get good at playing the thing.
The workshop
endpin upgrade
new french bridge with personalised wings
Some pics from this morning
The workshop
endpin upgrade
new french bridge with personalised wings
Some pics from this morning
