Double Bass new here and looking for repair advice.

[Victor Garcia]

Hi everyone, I'm new in pretty much everything, here for sure, also playing double bass (I finally fulfilled my long awaited wish to get myself one) and sadly, now I must start repairing.

Here the story,

As all of you know double bass doesn't come cheap, I have a family and a few other hobbies (motorcycle riding and fixing them) music is always been a pleasure and I enjoy listening and playing it. Finally I got myself a double bass, it is a German 4/4 gedo-musik.de, they are decent and got it incredibly cheap because the neck broke at the factory and they fixed it, but not really as good as one would wish, it just broke again. To bring it to a luthier would be simply not worth it and since I'm just learning I just want to keep this one until I'm good enough for it to make sense to upgrade (specially by gathering experience and knowing what is really what i need/ want).

Since the instrument itself is not the fancier, im also thinking of saving myself a bit of the very fine work of patiently separating the finger board (but even sure the kind of glue they used will allow it) and go wild making an ugly hole through the finger board get a screw in (in even thinking a bolt on the other side) , gluing the broken neck with slow epoxy and pressing it. I'm just thinking that such a solid solution might have a bad impact in the sound. But who knows?

Here are some pics and i hope some of you can understand what I'm trying to achieve here, a fitting good solution, for an instrument that I knew was damaged when I bought, of not the highest quality and for me to keep leaning in my beginner's stage.

Cheers folks!

 

[two fingers]

Welcome to TalkBass!!!!

I can't help with the actual repair. However, some of the most helpful people you will ever find are located in our Luthier's Corner section. They are the guys and ladies who build and repair basses. They will be able to point you in the right direction. Try posting this same question and pics in a new thread over there. That should get you some positive results.

Luthier's Corner

 

[Oddly]

Welcome indeed!
As Two Fingers said, you'll get all the help you need here.
Be aware that there's actually TWO Luthier Corners (a bit daft, I know, but for some strange reason most of TalkBass is divided into two sections)...the Double Bass one is here...Luthier's Corner [DB]

 

[Victor Garcia]

Thank you guys, this was really fast and useful, I'll post this in the right place again.

 

[John Sprague]

Hey Victor, where are you located?

 

[Victor Garcia]

Hey Victor, where are you located?

Hi John, i live in Germany, Dortmund area

 

[210superair]

I repaired an exact same break on a Kay cello, here's the thread-

Neck heel cello repair, wish me luck

As long as your bass is hide glue it's totally doable, but be ready for a ride! I made some mistakes along the way and sort of learned as I went, but I've done all the repairs and setups on my cello and basses since, and I'm quite confident in doing many things now. There are indeed a lot of helpful people on here, and if you start a repair thread I'd certainly be watching. Good luck!

 

[John Sprague]

Hi Victor,
I am going to say something controversial. Around here folks like to recommend the highest quality repair methods, all for good reason. But, there is a time and place for alternative methods, and we run into these moments due to having a large rental fleet and servicing many schools. Schools frequently need to pinch pennies to make their programs work, and let's be honest school basses get dragged down the halls by their scrolls, sometimes with the player's friends riding on them. It's hell on that neck, and that break happens to them all sooner or later. So here is our budget-friendly fix for basses that don't warrant the proper, lengthy repair:

Get this epoxy, and only this epoxy. No substitutions:
Loctite Hysol 0151.
They have German distribution.

Step 1:Apply epoxy to the joint, and clamp it together. No screws, no holes, just clamp and cure for five days.

There is no step two, it's done and will hold for years. We have at least a hundred of these repairs out there and they've never come apart.
Good luck!

 

[Victor Garcia]

Thank you very much!

 

[210superair]

If you take that advice, better make sure that joint is absolutely straight, and angled right... or you'll have ruined the bass for good...

I'm not bad mouthing John's advice, but to me that sounds like helping someone learn to turn the lights out by handing them a pistol and telling them to shoot the bulb. Will it work? Maybe! Is it the right way to do it? Not so much...

Just my opinion, and I understand John's point on cheap instruments. I'm not familiar with this instrument, but unless it's a bso, it deserves a better repair than that...

 

[GretschWretch]

If you take that advice, better make sure that joint is absolutely straight, and angled right... or you'll have ruined the bass for good...

I'm not bad mouthing John's advice, but to me that sounds like helping someone learn to turn the lights out by handing them a pistol and telling them to shoot the bulb. Will it work? Maybe! Is it the right way to do it? Not so much...

Just my opinion, and I understand John's point on cheap instruments. I'm not familiar with this instrument, but unless it's a bso, it deserves a better repair than that...

In the main I agree with this, but I had an Englehardt EM-3 shipped from Houston, and in spite of his assurances to the contrary, the seller did NOT know how to pack a bass. It arrived with the usual neck break in the usual place, but it was a clean break. At that time not knowing about hide glue, I epoxied it back together: aligned perfectly, no screws or bolts needed. That 1/4 DB has served as my "loud"acoustic bass guitar for a decade and a half, and the repair has held.

 

[james condino]

Hello Victor; welcome to Talkbass!

Please remember that the proportions and tension load on a 1/4 bass are significantly different than on a much large 3/4. There is also no going backwards with epoxy. If you use traditional hot hide glue, you can release and reverse the joint many times.

From the photos, it appears that the neck broke because it is made from a cheap, substandard piece of wood with a visible inclusion and knot directly at the break, in an area of the neck that is already prone to failure. I'd contact the manufacturer & mention this post on an international forum (the largest in the world I believe).

While you agreed to buy a bass that had been repaired, I don't believe you agreed to buy one with a substandard neck with a known weekness that was almost guaranteed to break after your purchase.

I would ask them to meet you in the middle- send out a replacement neck under warranty, but and then you can install it; a fair compromise for both of you.

If you insist on drilling a big hole and continuing along your suggested path, as a minimum, drill it from the backside of the heel rather than through the top of the fingerboard. Also hot hide glue should be less expensive and hold better than epoxy....

Try your best not to do it like these:

 

[unbrokenchain]

Hot hide glue
@210superair has a good solution if you have access to the right tools. If you go with a lag bolt/screw though, remove the fingerboard first and countersink it behind the board, it's tedious though not difficult. But unless you know what you're doing, hardware often has a way of not doing what you want it to (you might end up with a gap when threading it in). In any case, be patient, careful, and don't expect to do it all in one day.

 

[Victor Garcia]

Hey everyone, thank you very much for the advice, out of it i had very good arguments and contacted the vendor with them, they picked out and are going to fix it. I hope that'll do for me to keep learning for a few years until upgrade time comes.