Double Bass Vintage American Standards on "the rack"

james condino

james condino

Spruce dork
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Sep 30, 2007
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asheville, nc
www.condino.com
#1
'Pretty sure I have not posted this workbench here; someone asked if they could get another look at it. Here are couple of vintage American Standard basses on "the rack"- one getting a new 41 1/2" D heel European maple neck and the other getting some internal love. The horizontal section rotates 360 degrees.

j.
www.kaybassrepair.com
@kaybassrepair
www.condino.com
 
#2
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#7
Mr. Condino??? Is my father on talkbass now??????

That looks great; nice shop too! I wish I had that much space....

This is just the mortising jig for the neck block; I have another for doing scrolls that is a bit more complicated but produces a similar exceptionally clean joint. It only took a couple of decades and 25 different jigs to work it out this clean.....I've made about a dozen of these for guitar building over the years so I had a pretty clear vision when I started. Learning how to keep the back button intact was a big step.

I re-purposed a giant metal 2" x 2" tubular steel welded firewood rack that had been sitting around for years and used it for the basic frame. My original intention was to just use it for the rotating body in the center; I'll regulary have one body on each side and rotate them around as I work on each one. Being able to tilt the table when carving and building new bodies is fantastic. Adding the mortising setup outboard was phase II. The next step will likely be to put my guitar body setup on the other side.
 
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#8
Here is my the other secret weapon:

A couple of years ago I bought an old Wysong edge sander at auction for about $350; 900 lbs of old 'arn. They were made down the road in Greensboro, NC and almost every old furniture factory had a few. I spent about six months reconfiguring it- stripped everything away, got a big thick section of steel for the platten and had it milled to within about .003" across all 40" working surface, changed the electronics and motor to 3 hp three phase so I could use a VFD as a very precise slow speed control, and several other issues were fixed, welded, & machined. Next I built a giant mobile base because it throws off so much sawdust I can only use it outside. It far exceeds my best expectations and is a neck maker's dream for both speed and precision. Grafts are a pleasure and I've modified the way I build my new necks and shaved about 20 hours off the production time.

For scale, that is the new American Standard bass neck getting ready for the scroll graft and the bottom casters on the base are 8" tall. When I fire it up with a roughing 36 grit belt, the whole area turns into a European maple blizzard....
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