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Double Bass Fun and rewarding project or self-inflicted heartache?
- Thread starter Markshan
- Start date
The asking price is way too much. I owned one of these for several years. Having been worked on by several luthiers depending on where I was living, it was quite a good sounding instrument but very fragile. I could never trust it to not open up somewhere or have something rattle or pop loose every time the weather changed. The number of cracks in your bass are all potential trouble spots, not to mention the flat back and blockless aspect. Most likely it has a bass bar that is part of the top, which is one more weakness. It might be a worthwhile learning project if you want to try a real major rebuild, but IMO it will never be a trustworthy instrument.
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In the ad he talks about just wanting it to go to someone who will put it back together. If it's still there in a week I plan on seeing just how serious he is about that statement.
If you're willing to go pick it up you should get it for free. Seriously.
I just saw he has it listed on Reverb as well. He seems to believe it has a lot of value. Maybe I will give it a couple weeks then reach out to him if it hasn't sold. If he can wring six bills out of it more power to him.
And the best part is they're actually a few double basses on Pittsburgh Craigslist at the moment. If I were looking for an instrument rather than a project I could find one that seems to be ready to go for just a little more than what he's asking.
When I was younger I wanted to learn to play double bass but could never afford one. Now on electric I just had to switch from a 34 in to a 32 because that last bit of reach was aggravating an old rotator cuff injury. Given that fact I'm not at all sure that I could handle an upright base right now though the mechanics may be different. I don't know enough to know.
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Thank heck for that. I’ve scraped some weird ideas out of basses over the years.
I resemble that remark.
I’m kinda both-and. This is a nightmare. The lesson one learns might not be “how to repair a bass”; rather, “what not to do with $600+ and two years of my life”. But it would be fun to tear down and then pick at it for months.
And regardless, in the end you’d have a lot of clamps, which is nice.
Based on my experience and that of others who have had similar basses brought back from that condition to being viable instruments, I'd hazard a (non-luthier) estimate of $15,000 minimum to have the work done in a bass shop. Pretty much everything that can be wrong with a bass is present in this one.
I was looking at the pictures showing the screws and just realized they're securing a layer of crudely bent wood over the lower bouts. Don't know why it took so long to see it. I shudder to think what's under that mess. Add another $2,000 to my guesstimate.
Again, I am looking for a learning experience, not looking to farm anything out. I'm quite certain it would be prohibitively expensive to have someone else do it. The person above who mentioned antique boats and a two year side project gets where I am coming from.
FWIW, my guess is that there is basically nothing under that wood. I suspect the original wood went missing and they put that over the hole and secured it with wood screws.
The point of my reply was to give an idea of what someone who knew what they were doing taking this on would charge so as to give you an idea of what you'd be in for. As someone else said, if you can get it for free, that's a fair price.
OK, if we take that $15,000 estimate as in the ballpark (and I'm not going to dispute it, given that it looks liike the object in question is mostly an assembly of dry-rotted wooden strips in the general form of a double bass), what does that estimate mean? Materials to repair this thing will surely cost less than $1000, and probably more like $500. So we're talking about $14,000 in labor. At $75/hour shop rate, that implies that an experienced qualified luthier would spend about 190 hours working on this. That's five weeks, solid, 40 hours a week, with all necessary tools and supplies instantly ready to hand and done at full speed, just as if it were gluing up a simple seam separation or adjusting a soundpost. Honestly, five full time weeks for an experienced person sounds awful short to me.
I'd say the most likely outcome for this thing is to end up on a restaurant wall for decoration. Anyone who takes it on with the hope of making it into a usable musical instrument is 99% certain to leave it partly disassembled after a couple years. After which it either becomes firewood or gets mounted on a restaurant wall for decoration.
I'd say the most likely outcome for this thing is to end up on a restaurant wall for decoration. Anyone who takes it on with the hope of making it into a usable musical instrument is 99% certain to leave it partly disassembled after a couple years. After which it either becomes firewood or gets mounted on a restaurant wall for decoration.
OP, if you want to buy a double bass to learn to play, don't start with a pile of wood; rent a well set up Shen, Christopher, or equivalent, hire a qualified instructor, learn how to play the DB (bow, too, please!) and THEN set out shopping for something that you can use to play the DB.
