Hey folks,
Long, long time, no speak.
I have a bass. I love this bass. Unless I come into some sort of lottery prize and become magnificently wealthy, it's my forever bass. I commissioned it in 2013, so it's 7 years old.
My bass has a problem. The back seam on the lower bout between the end block and the corner block chronically pops open, and not a small amount, either. The gap is often open close to a centimetre wide between the rib and the back.
It's done this basically since the year I bought it, and I've had it reglued several times, until at a certain point I got sick of it and just left it open for a few years because it didn't seem to affect performance and I was too poor to invest serious money into fixing it. Over the pandemic, I had the time, hide glue, and bass clamps, so I made my own attempt at regluing it, which was successful ... until we had a big humidity drop this winter and it popped open again.
My question is, with the gap as wide open as it gets (like, it doesn't make a buzzing sound because the bits down vibrate together - they're too far from each other), is glue alone the right solution, or should I look into adding a piece to help fill this gap somehow? The gap doesn't shrink immensely in high humidity, meaning it's always there, so maybe something that spans half the width of the gap? That way when it does have dryness pulling it apart it's got half a chance to stay together.
My preference, of course, would be to have a luthier do this, but I want to run this idea past some people in the know first so that I can go armed with some knowledge to the luthier I'd ask to do the work.
Thanks for any insight you can give. If you want or need pictures I can get some tomorrow morning - it's pretty dark at this point today.
Long, long time, no speak.
I have a bass. I love this bass. Unless I come into some sort of lottery prize and become magnificently wealthy, it's my forever bass. I commissioned it in 2013, so it's 7 years old.
My bass has a problem. The back seam on the lower bout between the end block and the corner block chronically pops open, and not a small amount, either. The gap is often open close to a centimetre wide between the rib and the back.
It's done this basically since the year I bought it, and I've had it reglued several times, until at a certain point I got sick of it and just left it open for a few years because it didn't seem to affect performance and I was too poor to invest serious money into fixing it. Over the pandemic, I had the time, hide glue, and bass clamps, so I made my own attempt at regluing it, which was successful ... until we had a big humidity drop this winter and it popped open again.
My question is, with the gap as wide open as it gets (like, it doesn't make a buzzing sound because the bits down vibrate together - they're too far from each other), is glue alone the right solution, or should I look into adding a piece to help fill this gap somehow? The gap doesn't shrink immensely in high humidity, meaning it's always there, so maybe something that spans half the width of the gap? That way when it does have dryness pulling it apart it's got half a chance to stay together.
My preference, of course, would be to have a luthier do this, but I want to run this idea past some people in the know first so that I can go armed with some knowledge to the luthier I'd ask to do the work.
Thanks for any insight you can give. If you want or need pictures I can get some tomorrow morning - it's pretty dark at this point today.
