Double Bass Need help fixing up a J Balaton half size double bass

[John Mycroft]

Trust me - if this bass had had an intact bridge and the back hadn't been falling off along 20 - 25% of the seam and the wood hadn't had ugly white patches on it, I would happily have settled down simply to playing it. As it is, I feel it deserves to be treated nicely and with as much TLC as my limited time & budget will allow. As a classical guitar player, I am very much aware that a bad choice of finish can do more harm than good and cost far more in terms of time and dollars to rectify.
So once again, I really can't overstate my gratitude both for the help I've been given and for the unconstructive remarks that have given me an incentive to do a better job than I may otherwise have done.

 

[Flamingo21]

Then I hope it all works out for you.

 

[turf3]

Well, I wouldn't worry a bit about the finish just yet. It looks to me like you've got a loose fingerboard, no bridge, maybe no tailpiece, sound post's dropped, some loose seams, looks like possibly a big crack on the top, and we haven't even started talking about the neck joint. Also no info on the end pin and tail wire. I think you need to make contact with a luthier who's willing to walk you through this - could be one of the experienced folks on this forum. First step - no adhesives except hot hide glue. Period.

Beyond that, I don't know what the right order of operations would be. I suspect that what you have there is an inexpensive factory made student instrument. Is it solid wood or plywood?

Back to the finish, it's usually not too tough to deal with white patches like that from water, without having to strip the finish. There's usually a lot of things you can do to make it look better, though not perfect. But unless it can be made reliably mechanically sound, don't spend time on the finish just yet. Nor the soundpost - you're a long ways from setting the soundpost and stringing it up to tension, I believe.

 

[John Mycroft]

The Story So Far : The nut and fingerboard are back in place. (I used regular woodworking glue for that and humbly beg for forgiveness). I've bought a new adjustable bridge and cut it down to the size & shape of the original (which broke and is now in the trash). My cutting & shaping of the feet wasn't spot on and I plan to make a pad of woodfiller to go under the feet of the bridge, place it on plastic food wrap so the filler doesn't stick to the body, tighten the strings just enough to hold the bridge in place, leave the filler to set and then take everything apart for a clean up. On the advice from another member here, I rubbed a little alcohol into some of the white patches on the body and it did, indeed, turn them back (mostly) to the original colour.
I've been warned about how and whether to refinish but nobody has said how to refinish. I aim to do as little as possible as I realise that I could easily make a bigger mess than I started with.
The soundpost is near enough back in place near the G end of the bridge. The top isn't cracked although it does look like another amateur has had a go at patching it around the G end of the bridge.
The neck joint is pretty gruesome - apparently the neck broke at some stage. There are 4 longish looking screws joining the neck to the body and I'm going to leave that alone.
Everything down the tail end is in good shape.
My hide glue arrived today and I'll remove the bridge (purely for safety's sake) before I clean up where the back has come away from the sides. It's a quarter inch wide gap about 2' long so not a total disaster. There's old glue in the gap that I'll remove before regluing the back. I've had it cramped but not glued for the last week to give all the wood a chance to get used to where I want it to be.
And yes, it's plywood.

 

[John Mycroft]

I just looked at the picture I posted - that large crack is actually the string that's attached to the soundpost! Sorry for the confusion.