Workingman

Cool, Pics?

Should be a killer. Good to know on the Kahler. I don't use tremolos much but have liked the Kahlers I have tried better than the Floyds.

Anybody over 40 who claims they didn't do any drugs back in the day probably did so many they don't remember much or don't want to.

Thanks, I think I can fix that. (The pictures that is).

Thanks, I will check on this. Been using dropbox for a while with no problems.

It is starting to feel more like auto-body work than lutherie. I finished strippoing the front and part of the back. Pictures are here: https://www.dropbox.com/home/Photos/Bass%20Restore I confirmed that the glue on the neck is hide glue by putting a warm damp rag on an exposed part. That is good news. Next week I hope to finish stripping the body and start cleaning up the neck. I may take the top off to reinforce the neck block.

This is going to be a slow project as the bass is up at the country house where I have tools and room that I don't in a NYC apartment. I masked off the neck pocket and started stripping the paint on the front. I thought that it would be just the black paint to remove making it the easy place to start. Well under the black paint was blue paint and under that was the original brown paint. I would have just taken it down to the original but it was in pretty bad shape. To bad as it was a real pain to get off. There are more pictures in the album here: https://www.dropbox....5f2w/r6WtNVciFj They show it after about three hours trying different methods to strip the paint. Tomorrow I am going to use hot damp rags to remove some of the old glue from the neck joint area as well as spend more time stripping the finish.

This one was made back in the 20's or 30's. All solid wood uprights can be prone to cracking. For the working bass player who was going from hot dance halls into the cold night this was a real problem. Now laminates are used on many basses but in the search for a more durable instrument a couple of companies experimented with aluminum. World War II and the resulting shortage of aluminum put an end to it. By the time the war had ended laminate technology had improved to the point where there was little need to use aluminum. I got some more finish stripped and will add pictures later.

Oh and I am glad it will be moved by the Metal Mod As a standing joke I play the riff from Ironman on it.

Thanks Wes, and yes please move it. Looks like your friend is a bit further along than I am, playing it in a band and all that. Its been a real challenge but great experience learning this instrument.

Tim, I plan on polishing it if the dents are not to bad. I they are I will give it the brushed metal look. Scott, I didn't post it in the main forum as it is an upright bass. If people are OK with it there, I will ask the mods to move the thread.

Let me know if you are interested in this as a progress thread. My brother found an old aluminum bodied upright bass in a dumpster behind a music store. I am a long time electric bass player but have been working on learning upright for a couple of years, mostly jazz and blues. So he gave it to me. It is in pretty bad shape but restore-able. Here is the good the bad and the ugly on it. The good: hey it was free; The body is is pretty good shape with all the internal braces solid; the neck is mostly in good shape; the tuners are dirty but in good shape, the strings are good ones (upright strings can run over $200 a set). The bad: The neck needs a total reset as the angle was way off and there was almost no over-stand (amount the neck is off the body). This meens I will have to rebuild the neck block and the heal to accommodate the over-stand. The button (place where the back meets the neck) is just a twisted piece of metal. I plan to straighten it and reinforce it with some maple. It needs a new tailpiece wire and a new end pin. The scroll has a crack that was badly repaired with gurrilla glue. The ugly: well the whole thing. It was originally painted brown than black. An attempt was made to make a foux finish that looked like wood but only the back was painted. One side had a yellow base coat put on. So the body is black and brown and yellow. Also it is filthy. Here are some pics of it with the neck removed but otherwise untouched. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/r7pgmpnj2de5f2w/r6WtNVciFj

Some styles of tune-o-matics used bushing and some did not. If your style is supposed to have bushings, you need them.

I think the test would be more valid if the hardware were the same or interchangeable. I do have two commercial guitars one with a mahogany body and the other with a maple body that have the same pickups. The hardware (though both are non-tremolo) and scale lengths are different. They sound very different though I don't know what the influence of the hardware and scale length. They were also both made in the same factory though a couple of years apart. I also installed the same pickup in the bridge position of a fat strat with an agathis body (same scale length as the maple guitar). Once again it sounds different. I know these are not apples to apples comparisons but they do make me tend to think the wood has an impact, maybe not 50% but more than 10%.

Glad you are finally getting shop access. I think it would be nice to have a finish friendly top that you could remove and clean. Also, the tubes underneath would be good but what would stop things from falling out? How about some kind of hinged board to keep things in place? Alternatively, a vertical tube would allow you to carry longer pieces. Let us know what you come up with.

Yes!

I know people who would be happy to get their hands on the original pups. If you plan on selling them, let me know.

Nice inlay. An idea about the grey problem with maple and glue; would it make sense to bleach a scrap and sand that? The idea being that the bleached maple would darken to the tone of normal maple.

It sounds as good as it looks. Is there a higher compliment for that guitar?

Did you sand a radius on it, or is it flat?

That is looking cool. Great idea and interesting work place.

Nice to see the process.

SwedishLuthier has the right way to test a pup clearly explained. I would be inclined to test the pup selector switch before soldering anything. They go bad more often than pups and you don't have to unsolder anything to check them. With a continuity detector you can check by touching one end to the pole on the switch that the pup is wired to. The other probe goes on the output pole. With the switch selecting the pup in question only, you should have continuity. If you don't it is a bad switch which can be replaced or possibly cleaned.

I think I said wow before but just in case I didn't, Wow!

I think people put too much stress on being a professional. There seems to be a stigma attached to being an amateur or a hobbyist. People take it less seriously than they do when someone says they are a professional even if their work is as good or better. Having seen you work and build threads here, you are a luthier.