Someone please tell me, it is not possible four months has flown by. My Nana used to shake her crooked finger at me when she was 80 years old and I was 20 to tell me…you just wait until you get old, you will understand. Time flies by the older you get. She was right! It seems there is always something going on that distracts our attention from the bass family. Festivals, weekly jams and keeping up with a house and full time jobs. Life is good and we are not complaining!
This Epiphone B-4 bass is resting comfortably and a little progress has been made with fitting and shimming the neck joint. Lonnie has been carefully repairing the edge flaws and making sure there is no visual trace to his repairs. The neck has been completely repaired in to one strong, original, intact Epiphone factory neck. The process of fitting the neck requires small paper thin shims be sanded and fit so there is no wobble or movement between the neck and the neck block. Once Lonnie is satisfied with the fit of the neck it will be glued up with a fresh batch of hide glue and allowed to rest until the set up work can be started. When Lonnie moves onto the set up things usually move pretty fast because he gets excited and wants to hear the bass. We have a new set of Thomastik Spirocore Weich planned for this bass. The light tension should be gentle to the neck while still producing a good full sound. This bass is destine to be a home studio bass so the quality of the sound is more important then volume. We have discovered loud acoustic jamming basses are not always the best sounding basses in the studio. Case in point, Barry Bales has a German made Meisel bass that he uses regularly on stage with Allison Krauss. This bass through a pick up from stage sounds great but it does not have the loudest voice un-amped.
Hopefully we can soon report on the quality and volume of this bass…the workshop is getting too full. I have Lonnie drowning in basses to be repaired and set up. If he retired today he has enough work for ten years or more (and still have a life). We know we have lots to look forward to in the future.
Stay tuned and I promise it will not be another four months until I post again.
Hi, found your blog looking for neck repair info. I have an Epi B4 #1841 and the action has been getting worse so I took a look at the neck joint and of course it's loose. I took the neck off and took some pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29716234@N07/sets/72157624354785992/
ReplyDeleteI've only ever done minor repairs on this bass but I'm wondering if I should try gluing this back on myself. The shop I normally take this to is away on vacation till mid July and I have 2 gigs before then.
I am a pro woodworker with a full shop but have no instrument repair skills. Would I be crazy to clean this joint up and get some hide glue and try this myself or just wait till mid July and play electric?
thanks for any suggestions. Love your blog.