Here’s an interesting project for me. Customer brought in this nice old bass, found in an attic.
The button carving below and the outline is typical of French basses from the mid- late 1800's. This one has no immediately apparent makers mark or label. Another mystery bass!
The Scroll has snapped off just below the nut and this will mean a scroll graft repair for sure.
Nice big scroll, looks original, four pegs and a very crusty set of gut strings. This was never a three-stringer. Also the volute has been broken off above the top tuner at some point and repaired but not in a very satisfactory way.
The Scroll gives an idea of the original red-brown varnish which on the rest of the instrument has deteriorated into a pobbly mess. I suspect it was a spirit varnish because of the brittleness of what is remaining, but the heat of the attic has shrunken and denatured whetever was there originally. There are a few spots on the top where the colour shows through. I think the ground is intact and I may be able to keep this by carefully scraping the crud off the surface then cleaning, when it’s time to refinish. That’s a long way off yet.
There are about ten cracks in the top ranging from these long ones to the usual short cracks near the FF tabs. And a nasty sound post crack that will come together OK but require an inlaid patch.
Corners are worn but repairable. This is the worst one.
Inside the top block looks like a bit of a mess, and I think I can see a dowel AND a coachbolt and a split.
The single wide centre brace is typical of French basses but has split in several places and will likely need to be replaced. Not looking forward to that one. The back seam has shrunken and there is one crack as shown but other than that the back is in good condition.
First evidence of home repairs – a weird flat fingerboard held on with a bolt. And some pine blocks underneath, nailed in :-(
Neck heel badly damages, evidence of both professional and home repairs. You can see evidence of a dowel plug on the right near the button.
The ribs have numerous cracks, some repaired, but all the wood is there … and it is lovely wood, as per the back.
Next step is to open up the instrument to have a look inside.
Removing the top went OK until I hit these nails in the lower and upper bouts.
The bolt holding the neck together came out with a little persuasion.
As I thought, the bolt had several companions!
Top off, time to take a closer look:
Ugly piece of work.
Bottom block area shows previous repairs as you’d expect from a bass of this age.
Top block similar
here’s one of the nastier cracks and edge damage caused by nails and putty! I was interested by what looked like a signature across the linen strip, but once cleaned it appears just a zigzag mark with a pencil. So we know for sure the bass was repaired by Zorro.
Common cracks here. You can see the glue beads of an old white-glue repair on the RHS
Inside the top block – can see splits, and yes, a failed dowel repair PLUS a coach-bolt PLUS a whole load of black resinous stuff, probably resorcinol or something like that.
Some successful repairs. Look at how thick the C bout linings are on the right hand side! They are really well made, and the centre brace sits very snugly up against them.
And some failed ones that I’ll have to redo. But look at how smooth and well-made the blocks are!
These were put in from through the FF holes I think.
The mortise still has the back of the heel firmly attached. I’m not going to worry too much about this as I have to replace the whole block anyway.
Altogether, this heel had one wooden dowel from back of heel diagonally down into the block, which obviously failed, and which was followed by a coachbolt through the same hole and down into the block at another angle. I reckon THIS is what split the block. Then another dowel through from front to back, (probably through the button) which obviously failed, so this was followed by a threaded rod right through from button through to the rustic fingerboard!
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