Are you planning to replace the bar? It looks like less than the ideal shape. Also, James, do you ever recommend top inlays for basses like this? My guy in NY likes to do one between the F-holes on plys and some German shop basses. He claims that stiffening up that area improves the attack, and makes for a clearer and often stronger sound. I found the results quite extraordinary on the few examples I tried, including what became my main axe for many years. Anyone else doing this?
Rob:
Do mean something like a belly patch under the bridge area? On an old ply, I have never inlayed one, but I do add them on top of the existing plys often; almost always if the arches had collapsed and then they were heated up and reclaimed back to normal shape. I will say that on my personal '47 Kay, the zombie bass that was resurrected from the dead, I do have a belly patch like that: .120" red spruce (always red spruce for me!) over a half football sized area and then another approx. 4 x 6" elipse over that and the two are blended in nice and smooth. Ask ten half deaf old geezers what it sounds like and you'll get 15 different responses. A big consideration for me in this area of the country is what the customer is looking for in the voice. While many of us like and want a bit more punch and more dynamic range out of the old plys, about 50% of the folks I run into have very specific tonal desires and they want it to sound like it did back in 1937 and the more modern upgrades are not what they want. It may sound better to us, but it doesn't sound like the original ....blah, blah, blah.... I add it to all of my personal Kays, but I've got two American Standard tops with no high arches, no signs of top deformation, and they already sound great, so I have no intentions of adding it.
I'll be giving a big workshop on this type of vintage ply restoration at the upcoming Assosciation of Stringed Instrument Artisan's Symposium in East Stroudsburg, PA this coming June.'Hopefully we can get a good gathering of bass nerds and cover a lot of things exactly like this with some hands on. I'll be there for the whole week and encourage folks to get into all of the nerdy details thay want while I'm there. I'll also have some new bass builds and be giving workshops on other subject matters.
"Cool! I just picked up an awesome old plywood bass on Craigslist for a steal. It just needs a little work. All I have to do is pull the epoxied and nailed on top off, completely rebuild all of the arches, belly patch, remove the old bass bar and add a new one, redo all of the loose plys and missing laminates, fix the rib cancer, new neck block and tailblock, glue everything back on, oh yeah... and somehow get the old epoxy and gorilla glue off 90% of the seams, rebuild the busted up dovetail, add a few lag bots in the broiken heel, remove the superglued on fingerboard, new board,add some carbon fiber inserts, full setup , new nut , bridge, saddle, tailpiece, weld up the busted tuning machines, maybee get a whole new cheap neck from what's his name on the world wide waste of time, new strings, and then fix up all of the edge damage, strip and refinish it, and I'll have a kick ass better than new bass that I only paid $1500 for on Craigslist!!!!!............."
j.
www.kaybassrepair.com
www.condino.com
