Plywood Bass Restoration, Part Two

from his 2011 GAL Convention workshop

by James Condino

Originally published in American Lutherie #110, 2012

See also,
Plywood Bass Restoration, Part One by James Condino



Anyone who works on old plywood basses is probably familiar with Chuck Traeger’s book, The Setup and Repair of the Double Bass for Optimum Sound. It’s the bible for plywood repair and I reviewed it in AL#84. It’s about 300 pages; $75 at Amazon. I spend more than that for one string. I recommend that you buy it from Henry Strobel. He’s in Aumsville, Oregon, outside of Salem. He’s written most of the violin books that we have, and he has a publishing company. One of my students liked my copy more than I did, so I don’t have one for the show. The book really gets beyond simple things like replacing the bass bar, into jobs like mode matching the differences between the fingerboard and the tailpiece. Chuck was the first guy to publish information about these breast patches on the soundboard; they make quite a difference in the response of a Kay. His new book is basically an addendum. I think he wanted to get the information out rather than wait for the next printing.

It’s fairly common to use some sort of graft material when you’re working on braces. The plies are weak, and it often happens that when the bass takes a hit, the bass bar sticks to the wood but the plies delaminate. I picked up the idea of a big graft from Chuck’s book. He uses linen, and that’s a popular material. Some people like natural parchment or goatskin, and drumheads are good too. You can buy them really thin (some almost too thin to sell), and for ten bucks you can get a big patch that works well. I ran out of material, so I went down to an old-school sewing shop in North Carolina. I took my little boy with me, and as soon as we walked in the door, all the old ladies with big hats were on us, petting his head and stuff. I told them what I wanted to do, and they put their heads together and found the best stuff in the shop for the job: it’s the substrate you use for needlepoint. Do you know what I mean by needlepoint? A big hoop and frame, and you load this material into it and you cross-stitch in and out?