Lonnie uses a straight edge to view the profile or relief in the fingerboard

Scraping the fingerboard a little at a time.  The amount of wood shavings this fingerboard produced filled a plastic zip lock bag.  Lonnie's keeps the wood shavings for possible future use...I have no idea what for...but he saves all the scrapes.

With the nut glued in place Lonnie continues to work on dressing the fingerboard.  The board is a very hard, high quality piece of wood.  I believe it is original to the bass but is much harder then other King or American Standard fingerboard s we have encountered.  He worked three evenings this week scraping and smoothing out the board to get it as flat as possible.  The board had a fairly high hump in the center and it has taken a good bit of work to get it flat.   Or in Lonnie’s word’s…”that fingerboard is *$!#ing hard stuff”.  His fingers get tired scraping hour after hour.  The fingerboard needs to be fairly flat for this set up of medium high string height and Dominant steel strings.  If all goes well Lonnie hopes to get a new bridge cut later this week or next week.

All good things take time…

Benefit gig...

Come out and join the fun.

I’ll be playing upright bass for my first real gig on Sunday, November 6^th from 3:00 pm -3:45 pm with Billy Lee Cox and Scott Brannon doing a Reno and Smiley tribute (this will be good stuff, promise).

This is a fund raiser so yawls come and support a good cause at the Beck & Benedict Hardware store is Waynesboro, PA

*** BENEFIT CONCERT ***

-- Come out and support this great cause! --

*** SUNDAY *** NOVEMBER 6, 2011

for the family of - MIKE McDONALD -

at Beck & Benedict Hardware Music Theatre

( 1 pm till 6 pm ) Cost is $10.00 at the door

*** The PARTICIPATING BANDS ***

* Ernie Bradley & Grassy Ridge 1 to 1:45 pm

*Twin Hill Express 2 to 2:45 pm

*Billy Lee Cox and Scott Brannon 3 to 3:45 pm

* ( doing a Don Reno and Red Smiley Tribute ) *

* Back Creek Valley Boys 4 to 4:45 pm

* Circa' Blue 5 to 6:00 pm

For more information call Brian at 717-372-6531 or Dick at 717-762-4711

Steady progress on the King Mortone...

It’s been a busy weekend with lots of good stuff. 

While I worked away cleaning house on a beautiful Saturday afternoon Lonnie worked away in the workshop.  He got the paper thin shims made in the morning and did the final dry fit for the neck in the afternoon.   He had difficulty getting the neck set on center so after much back and forth he trimmed the neck block.  This worked well and he was able to get the neck to fit nicely on center.  He glued the shims to the neck joint (while I was cleaning windows so I have no pictures).  Then later in the day he was able to glue up the neck and let it set overnight. 

On Sunday he worked on the nut and fingerboard.  The fingerboard is a good one, after some scraping Lonnie’s tool got hot and his fingers got tired.  He said the fingerboard is one hard *%$! #!* and that’s a good thing.  That means it is either ebony or really hard rosewood.  Either way the fingerboard has lots of life in it and can take many more dressings.  Now that the neck is set, the nut glued in place the fingerboard dressing started it won’t be too long until he moves onto the set up.  It feels like every project takes longer then it should…but then again it takes as long as it needs to suit Lonnie’s high standards.

Working to get the neck on center at the dry fit stage

The smallest details, a small shim at the bottom of the dove tail

The neck glued and drying for 24 hours

Popeye at rest...

Here is a little video I played around with today!

Even more rain and the Mortone...

Here we are…and it is still raining.  This will be the most rain we have had in one year since they began to keep records in the 1800’s.  The air is humid and the ground is saturated.  Getting the layers of oil tinting to dry has been a bear.  For the most part the edges are finished and look as good as they should for a bass of this age.  We go for a nice clean look with out being too perfect.  The bass needs to look its age.  Not like Joan Rivers where it does not look natural.

Lonnie is starting the “dry fit” for the neck.  This is where he makes small paper thin shims to apply to the neck joint to get a good tight fit.  While I was making supper I could hear the belt sander running and running.  He gets the shims so thin he almost sands the tips of his fingers.  Getting the neck adjusted and centered on the bass is a critical step.  If the neck is out of alignment the nut to bridge to saddle will be out of center.  He takes great care to measure from FF hole and side to side to get the neck on center.  All of these little things add up to the ease and playability of the bass.  We try to achieve a nice buttery playing bass that sounds good and looks even better.

Lonnie is satisfied that the edges look good but not too perfect.  This seems like a good stopping point to move on to the neck reset

He cleaned the wood a second time just to be sure all the lumps and bumps of glue were gone.

The beginning of the dry fit for the neck.  He is working on a good tight joint which requires small paper thin shims be made and attached with hide glue.  The super thin shims will make for a good tight neck joint.

The King Mortone...

The rain has stopped…Finally!

The edge work continues.  Layer by layer the new wood melts into the old wood.

The bottom of the bass looking the way it did before our work began.

 

 

The edge work before the color was applied

The way the edges look now.  Not completely done but getting closer

All the edges are beginning to blend nicely

The view from here looks pretty nice!

 Popeye will be looking fit and healthy before you know it. 

Keep checking back.

More rain and the Mortone Bass

It is raining once again with lots of thunder and lighting…will it ever stop?

We have had so much rain it feels good to get back to the basses for a distraction.  Our area had 12” of rain in one day with flooding all around us.  Fortunately we are fine, the house is fine and all the basses are safe.  We were lucky, some folks around us were not as lucky.

The King Mortone is coming along and looking good.  Lonnie has been careful to slowly build the layers of color around the edges.  If you try to go too dark to fast you end up with dark, muddy opaque edges.  The idea is to build the color slowly with transparent layers of color.  This gives a better vintage appearance with out a painted look.  You need to let the oil colors dry slowly, a coat a day is about as fast as you want to go.  The weather is to change to dry and cool.  This will help speed up the drying process.  Once Lonnie gets all the cosmetic touch up work done he will reset the neck.  Then things come together pretty quickly because he gets excited.

Stay tune for updates.

Rain and the Mortone...

In the words of Del McCoury…

Rain please go away
C
Leave me alone come another day
G C
My love is gone this time to stay
D7 G
Rain please go away

Whew!  8 inches of rain and its still coming down.  We might need the basses to turn into canoes.  We are on target to have more rain then 1972 Agnes flood.  We really need some sunshine.

The work on the King Mortone continues.  Layers of color are being applied and the edge repairs are slowly becoming invisible.  

Progress is slow and steady!