Double Bass Rehabing a Kay, need advice

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

So having successfully restored my old King to playing shape, I recently took in trade a well-worn '51 Kay Concert with a loose bottom block and some fairly massive edge damage.

Getting the block back into place and glued down was fairly easy (fingers crossed) but rebuilding the edges is new territory for me. I'm a car guy, not a wood guy.

I'm not going for pretty or factory fresh, but figured that having one intact layer of laminate at the edge was trouble waiting to happen.

I started building up the worst areas by shaping and fitting layers of birch laminate from a craft store (I would have used poplar or spruce had they been available) that I press-fit with hide glue.

What now? Any hints on how to fill in around the new wood and how to color match and finish would be greatly appreciated.

 

[eh_train]

Hi KFS,

Congrats on finishing the King! Do you mean you've traded it on this new project?? Or just added another bass to the collection?

I re-laminated the edges on a Kay a few years ago. It's mostly just patiently patching, as you've been doing. Re. filling in around the new wood, I was able to get a very good fit on the patches by placing a sheet of paper over the missing section, and "shading" an outline of the missing wood with the side of a pencil.

Then I'd take the paper patch outline (with some extra paper around it), tape the entire thing onto the new veneer, and cut out the patch with a blade. It usually fit with about 98% accuracy - only a little fill needed. When gluing, let the hide glue fill in the small gaps and cover these areas with sawdust. Then there's no need for non-wood filler.

If the edge needs to be rebuilt let some material overhang, then trim and sand all of the layers of veneer to fit the edge contour once you have it all built up.

I sealed the new wood, then made a French polish to do the colour matching. I still don't find it an easy task, even though there are quite a few TB posts on finishing. One good thing if it's mostly edge re-lamination: People tend to not notice variations in the finish (as long as they're not too extreme).

Cheers,

Paul (Eh_train)

 

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

Hey Paul. Nice to hear from you.

I've actually got two projects in the house besides the King -- the Kay, which is just about structurally sound after two weeks of surgeries, and a wrecked old Czech that I got for free over the summer and popped the top on just last night. Learning how to bend wood and cleat open cracks is going to be interesting.

Thanks for the idea to mix sawdust with hide glue and use that as filler. I've heard of mixing epoxy with sawdust but really didn't want to go there.