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Double Bass PLEASE HELP! Round wooden rod dislocated inside my double bass

N

novo

Feb 20, 2007
217
9
#1
Good Afternoon

I'm quite a novice player and today I ve been practicing my double bass and all of a sudden the bridge fell from its place to the floor. After trying to put the bridge back in place I heard a sound inside the bass and found that a round wooden rod approx 15-20 cms long was lying around the bass and I do not know what it is..

Can somebody please help me here as to what it is ? and how can I fix this..

Any help would be very appreciated

Chris
 
#5
#6
The best you can do is only going to be a temporary fix, you'll have to get to someone with more specialized tools and a commensurate skill set. DO NOT put your bridge back up and tune your strings up, you can put your bridge foot through the top of the bass.

You're going to need a small mirror with an extendable handle, so you can stick it through the f-hole and see what you're doing and your going need some tool to handle the sound post through the f-holes, if you can get some long, thin forceps those work pretty good. There's a specialized soundpost setter tool, google that to see what it looks like. Hopefully you'll be able to see some markings on the inside of the bass back to help you position it correctly, if not you want the post to sit more or less under the treble side bridge foot. If the post was not fitted properly to begin with (since there aren't any luthiers where you live, although if you don't know what they are actually called, you might be surprised), it's not going to want to stand up by itself with no tension on teh top, so get a few discs off of free weights, wrap them in a towel or something an put them on the top.
The last time my soundpost fell, I was at a gig and I had to reposition it by getting some string in one f-hole and out the other, wrapping the string around the top and bottom of the post and pulling back and forth on either side of the string to get the post upright and in approximate position. And took it to the shop the next day.
But check this out...
 
#7
Suggestion:
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I'm not sure what part of Malta you live in (which Island), but you could always find out the contact information for one of the bassists in the section of the orchestra and find out where they get theirs repaired.

(sidenote- my grandparents are Maltese immigrants- My last name is Attard. I visited there in 2001- beautiful country. Didn't know it had much of a bass scene!)
 
#9
Another note, more along the cause of the problem to begin with rather than resetting your soundpost: If your bridge fell over with normal string tension on it, then it had probably tilted towards the fingerboard (ie, the top edge was closer to the FB than the legs). This can happen gradually through tuning; the friction of the strings in the bridge slots can pull the top in the direction of the tuning box as you tune up. To avoid this happening again, use a lead pencil (the softer the better) to lubricate the bridge slots. Also, use a thin book or similarly sized object to regularly check that the tailpiece-side of the bridge is at 90 degrees to the belly. Lastly, when you get you post back up and in a position where the bass speaks evenly & freely across all four strings, use a pencil on a stick to trace around its position inside on both the belly & back (use a bent coathanger to do the belly); that way you'll always have a reference point if it happens again or you want to make slight adjustments in future. Good luck!
 
#12
Just a thought; I haven't had a chance to check the videos to see if they mention this, but also watch the orientation of your SP, ie: Is it rotated correctly with respect to the graduations in the belly & back? That is, as the back & belly bulge out more in the middle than at the edges, the SP is chamfered at each end to account for the slight difference in length on the inside & outside of the post to ensure a snug fit of the mating faces. If the post was originally set using a luthier's tool, there'll be a vertical 'stab' mark in it's side towards one end. Make sure that's (a) closer to the belly than the back & (b) facing sideways towards the G-string side of the bass.
 

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