Double Bass Thompson Hybrid neck broken

[John Sprague]

Re: the white glue used here by Thompson - it is popular among furniture builders and woodworkers of every stripe in China. It's easy to work with, has decent sheer strength and penetration, and is water soluble for easy repair. We also used it for a short while, and stopped for one simple reason: our dealers like to see hide glue. Functionally, there's no difference, but perceptions are important. So seeing that glue on the Thompson bass does not mean low quality assembly. It's a viable choice. The fit is the issue.

Neck sets in a production environment: every factory from the US to Germany to Czechoslovakia to Romania has had the same issue, we see them roll into the shop all the time. You can watch your people and train and trust and pay through the nose, but at some point someone will backslide and take the fast way out. When it rears its ugly head, hopefully the manufacturer is all over the problem, from tracing the work back to the worker who set the neck, to smothering the player with love and warranty (and even out-of-warranty) coverage. I don't spend a lot of time blowing smoke about our perfection, I'll tell you here that this is how quality slips among human workers, and this is also how it is brought back on the bubble. I've been with Sam for 14 years, and in that time we've had a couple waves of neck-fit upheaval and revolution. Pretty much every company that has lasted a long time does it this way, regardless of whether it's a violin or an iPod.

My apologies for boring yous all to death.

 

[drurb]

To help answer your question Les-Drurb, here's some more info on neck sets.

Re: the white glue used here by Thompson - it is popular among furniture builders and woodworkers of every stripe in China. It's easy to work with, has decent sheer strength and penetration, and is water soluble for easy repair. We also used it for a short while, and stopped for one simple reason: our dealers like to see hide glue. Functionally, there's no difference, but perceptions are important. So seeing that glue on the Thompson bass does not mean low quality assembly. It's a viable choice. The fit is the issue.

Neck sets in a production environment: every factory from the US to Germany to Czechoslovakia to Romania has had the same issue, we see them roll into the shop all the time. You can watch your people and train and trust and pay through the nose, but at some point someone will backslide and take the fast way out. When it rears its ugly head, hopefully the manufacturer is all over the problem, from tracing the work back to the worker who set the neck, to smothering the player with love and warranty (and even out-of-warranty) coverage. I don't spend a lot of time blowing smoke about our perfection, I'll tell you here that this is how quality slips among human workers, and this is also how it is brought back on the bubble. I've been with Sam for 14 years, and in that time we've had a couple waves of neck-fit upheaval and revolution. Pretty much every company that has lasted a long time does it this way, regardless of whether it's a violin or an iPod.

My apologies for boring yous all to death.

Thanks, John. Your post is quite in line with what I posted earlier. Specifically--that there can be transient issues with quality control and what's important is what the maker does about it and how the customer is treated when lapses occur. The question I asked, though, was about how common these issues are.

 

[John Sprague]

Based on what Gary posted, the answer would seem to be because it would be unplayable junk. That is, if you allow the maker to make even a reasonable profit after labor costs.



Thanks, John. Your post is quite in line with what I posted earlier. Specifically--that there can be transient issues with quality control and what's important is what the maker does about it and how the customer is treated when lapses occur. The question I asked, though, was about how common these issues are.

Oh, you want the SHORT answer!
2.3 percent.

 

[HughFosterWood]

All I can go on is what I've heard from Michael Krutz who spends a lot of time working with the family who makes most of the Krutz basses to his specs. He speaks highly of their operation and has told me they treat their employees well. This was corroborated by the luthier I trained under who spent several weeks at the shop in China. This thread has grown from an isolated case of one or two Chinese basses with poorly fit necks into a broad brush assault on Chinese production.
No, I've never been to China and have no idea where Thompson, Shen, Eastman, Christopher, etc basses are made or how the employees are treated. I do care about the product I work with daily.

Just may be that's why Krutz necks don't pop out.

 

[hhalt]

Coming full circle...the seller of the Thompson that broke (see post #1) assumes it was dropped, because it has been in a school environment, so he feels the warranty is void. I am not going to push it because this is entirely possible, and the student rental fees go toward any repairs. He has given me really good deals and customer service on basses, and even replaced one of my students basses who was not happy with it.

I sure opened a can of worms, didn't I!!

 

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

Some warranty.

 

[hhalt]

Just wanted to let everyone know that Steve at the String Emporium has agreed to take care of the repair to my Thompson hybrid. As I have said before, his basses have held up really well in Reno. Myself and many of my students have done business with Steve over the years, and he has always taken excellent care of his customers.

 

[Jake deVilliers]

Just wanted to let everyone know that Steve at the String Emporium has agreed to take care of the repair to my Thompson hybrid. As I have said before, his basses have held up really well in Reno. Myself and many of my students have done business with Steve over the years, and he has always taken excellent care of his customers.

Attaboy Steve!

 

[RSBBass]

That ain't hide glue. I have it on good information that Shen uses a glue made from corn starch and vinegar in addition to hide glue. Maybe this is a similar recipe. It's supposed to be incredibly strong stuff, but is soluble with acetone.

Where did you get this information?

Cornstarch can form something like library paste if it is mixed with water. It would not be strong. Vinegar is just a week acetic acid solution in water. If anything the acid would break the starch making for a less strong paste. Acetone is a solvent that works on some organic bonds but I can't see why it would work on cornstarch. Plain water would turn it back into a slurry/paste.

OK thinking I was getting on my high horse too quickly I tried the cornstarch vinegar mix. When it dried it has no strength and just turned to powder when a crushed it between my fingers.

 

[drurb]

Just wanted to let everyone know that Steve at the String Emporium has agreed to take care of the repair to my Thompson hybrid. As I have said before, his basses have held up really well in Reno. Myself and many of my students have done business with Steve over the years, and he has always taken excellent care of his customers.

Excellent. In the end, the right result.

 

[Stephen Koscica]

Hello all,

I would like to finally comment about the posts that have been left here regarding the particular Thompson hybrid bass with the separated neck (joint.) There was a lot of misinformation and confusion from some that posted here originally. It's also very frustrating when either the facts are just not there, greatly exaggerated or so worded in such a crafty way that it encouraged wrongful speculation. Most all of those (posts) have already been deleted.

First all of all, about glue. We have never used or use, white glue of any kind in any of our Thompson basses. The only glue used is the traditional, animal (cow-hide) glue. That's that! For those of you not familiar with the types of glue used on instruments, the animal glue is brittle (when dry) and will 'pop' apart. White glue will interlock the wood fibers and tear the wood apart rather than break the glue bond.

Secondly, equally frustrating is the misinformation about the damaged neck joint on the university bass. Initially, it was our understanding that the neck was hit by accident which caused the neck to come out. Regardless, after some discussion with the informed parties there, we still covered the neck repairs. End of story. There was NEVER any denial to fix a valid warranty repair by us…ever. Not this time and not ever. Believe me, any complaints or issues that arise on any of our basses, we want to know what's going on and to fix whatever it is as quickly as possible. Simple as that. One of the necks was surely hit and the other, possibly so too. Both incidents happened (by odd coincidence) at the same school.

Colleague and friend David Gage once remarked that "wood has a mind of its own sometimes!" Don't we all know that?!! Sometimes though, no matter how many years of preparation: natural drying, aging, procuring etc… wood can react and do something beyond control.

I think we were the first to ever implement a nice, fully comprehensive warranty with our basses. The Wan-Bernadels and Rogeri basses have 3 years and the Thompson plywood RM-100 and Hybrid, RM-200's have 2 years. All inclusive. We first started this because there was initially so much bad PR with the junky Chinese basses floating around, we wanted to show everyone that our Wans and our Thompsons were reliable. We can afford this, because quite frankly, we almost never have a problem on any of our basses. I think out of hundreds of Thompson basses sold (more than 400 already), we had 2 neck/joint issues.

The 'slave labor' thing too was way out of line. There's three families involved with Thompson basses. First, there's mine. (My wife, our two grown 'kids' already out of college now, my nephew and one of my kid's friends, that works for us now.) Then there's the two families that co-own the shop in China that make our Thompson basses for us. No slave labor, but two families there, comprised with their close knit, long time employees, altogether make maybe about 8-10 people there in total. Throughout the year, I frequently work side by side with these same (good) people to show them how we do things here in the US. (I've also learned more than a thing or two from these same people too.) We're just trying our best to make the best basses.

So that's all I wanted to say. We have a great product with a good warranty, no white glue and no slaves!

Peace.

Steve Koscica
String Emporium, (Thompson Upright Basses)