Carving the bridge...

The special modification work continues on the Kay bass. Lonnie is working on lightening the bridge. This is the same technique he used on the American Standard bass bridge. All of this work is accomplished by hand carving the bridge. Not an easy “freehand” task.

1953 Kay...resume

The weather has been cool and rainy so it gives us a break from outside projects and a little time to resume work on the 1953 Kay bass. Having attended the 2009 ISB convention last week really got the creative juices flowing for Lonnie. So many beautiful bass designs, outstanding craftsmanship and the opportunity to touch and feel the woods. Lonnie has been inspired to try a few modifications to the Kay bass to get as much volume and tone as we can from this vintage beauty. I wondered how long it was going to take for him to experiment with a bass. Lonnie has a long history of restoring old things, modifying new things and in general being more creative then most people are willing to take the time to invest into a project.

As a kid (6 or 7 years old) Lonnie along with his Dad and younger brother spent many an evening in the family garage super tuning lawn mower engines for their racing go carts. That led to fast, custom motorcycles as teenagers and eventfully building and racing muscle cars in the late 1970’s…on a drag strip (no street racing). So most of Lonnie’s life he has worked with his hands and his brain creating things…working on vintage basses is not a huge leap for his talents. For a ten year span he worked for a small company that modified custom vans for the handicap community. His daily job consisted of taking brand new custom vans (expensive custom vans) cutting off the roofs and dropping the floors to make them handicap assessable. You have to have some really creative skills to work around custom interiors of completed vans when you are using cutting shears and a welder…this was probably the most creative and interesting career he had has so far in his lifetime.

So I told you all that to tell you this…the modifications he has planned for the Kay bass will not alter the original appearance of the bass but are only intended to bring out the best tone possible. He is currently “super tuning” the tail piece and has some design plans for a custom bridge and end pin. I never know what is in his head until is it completed on the bass. By the time he executes his modifications he has built it a hundred times in his head…the man can problem solve in his sleep…this is why I feel HE is the true artist in the house, even though I am the one with the degree in art.

I’ll continue to update with new post as he makes progress. We have not picked out a string yet but we are leaning towards Thomastik Dominants solo tuned to EADG.

2009 ISB Convention

We had the opportunity to attend the 2009 International Society of Bassist convention at Penn State this week. Though this has nothing to do with the workshop, we were inspired and overwhelmed by all the beautiful basses. This was a once in a life time chance to see the worlds best custom bass maker’s along with over a hundred vintage basses from the 1600, 1700 and 1800th century. The basses were absolutely beautiful and the people were warm and friendly. The colors of the finish, the bass shapes and highly ornate woods were outstanding. Here is a link to a slide show that captures a small part of our day.

http://s318.photobucket.com/albums/mm428/bassmonkey2/ISB%202009/?albumview=slideshow

In one word it was overwhelming. We are inspired.

Jamming with the American Standard...

Festival season is indeed upon us and the American Standard bass is working out real well. It has proven it’s self to be a great jam bass with lots of acoustic punch. Here are two different bass players giving it a work out…both players LOVED the shape, size and smoothness of the neck.

I don’t know…I like it too...

…but they both really loved it.

Festival season has begun...

As expected all has been quiet in the workshop as festival season has begun…YEE-HAW!

The 1953 Kay C-1 is waiting patiently for Lonnie’s attention.

The 1950 American Standard bass has proven it self “jam worthy”. We were jam camping and picking, the bass held down the low-end just fine. I played three solid hours in a pick up jam of friends out in an open field (no tree’s to shake) with out so much as a callouse on my fingers. A great set up and quality strings make this bass a joy to play…and THIS bass is a JOY to play.

I’ll make updates as I have them…enjoy the festival season!!!

Re-visiting the American Standard Bass String combo

With festival season approaching activity in the workshop will slow down as there are many new chores to take up our time…with that said we are still fussing over the American Standard bass. We have laid the 1953 Kay bass to the side; it is about a quarter of the way into a new set up. We want to do some additional string experimenting on the American Standard.

The American Standard bass has a ton of sustain and the volume is good but I want a better tone from this bass. The first set of strings we tried were the Thomastik Dominants solo, which I like on a 43” string length, but for some reason the bass did not like these strings. We moved on to the full set of Velvet Garbo’s…I love these strings. They are very easy to play and the A and E were outstanding but the G and D were still not quite what my ear wanted to here from this bass.

American Standard basses are huge in body size and string length. These basses are known for their big tone and are highly sought after by the professional players. To drop a few names that had and still do play American Standard…Roy Huskey Jr., Kent (Superman) Blanton, Kip Martin, Mark Fain, Barry Bales, Marshall Wilborn, Jere Cherryhomles…and the list goes on. I have high expectations for this bass and with all Lonnie’s efforts…we are going to get it right!

Since I like the A and E I thought next we would try gut G and D so I dug around in our vintage string drawer and found new old stock of a perfectly matched pair of “Art Tone” gut strings. We oiled these vintage babies up and tried them out. After a few minutes of playing and tuning, playing and tuning, playing and tuning…nope…still not what I wanted. Back to the full set of Garbo’s!

We played at a local jam with the full set of Garbo’s on the bass and I had the opportunity for two other bass players (one semi-pro) to play the bass while I listen from 15 feet away. She pulled some great volume out of the bass with the Garbo’s but it is still not the ultimate string for this bass and my ear. So while the bass sat in the stand and Lonnie proceeded to work on the set up of a friend’s bass I began to think…and think…and think. Then it hit me…Thomastik Spiro mittels (mediums). This bass is in tip top shape, with all the efforts and the new ebony fingerboard, the neck and the top can with stand the Spiro mediums higher tension.

Normally I am not a fan of the Spiro mediums for a vintage bass as the tension can be too much for the top and neck, but on this bass…we know it is solid because we have looked and studied every inch of this bass. Lonnie and I discussed it and at 9:30 last night…ZOWIE…we hit the combination. We removed a set of used Thomastik Spiro mediums from another bass (1953 Epiphone) and strung them on the American Standard…and there was THAT tone I was looking for!!! Just like that, this bass went from a great bass to an awesome bass.

Now the bass has the punch, sustain, volume and the TONE my ear wants to hear. So there we stood at 10:30 at night looking at each other grinning from ear to ear…we hit the bass and string combo that brought this old beauty front and center. I now understand why Thomastik Spirocores are a faithful stand by for so many bass players.

Now that we have hit the right combination for my ear on this bass, we are ready to take this big old bass to an outdoor festival and shake the leaves off the trees. I will give a full report on how we make out.

1953 Kay C-1 #31642

We are getting ready to move onto the next project bass…which we hope isn’t nearly as much of a project as the American Standard bass.




This is a 1953 Kay Bass, the model is a C-1, the serial number is 31642 that we found a year and a half ago from a young man that was moving to Canada. He wanted to sell it, then didn’t want to sell it and then finally did sell it to us just days before he moved. He had the bass since college and had used it to complete a music degree. He was a bass guitar player and only needed the upright for a short time…he never really took a liking to it so we added it to our bass family…we called him Vincent…Vince works too.

The bass was previously a one owner bass, when the original owner, John Johnson, passed away his wife took it to a local music store in Allentown, PA.



It remained there until the young guy bought it and then sold it to us. When I first saw this bass being unloaded from the back of a Honda Civic, I though what a cool original canvas bass bag. It was covered with lovingly hand sewn patches and different colors of fabric. Dolly Parton's “Coat of Many Colors” comes to mind.




We took the canvas cover off and discovered a nice, very original bass in the classic Kay sun burst finish. But then came the real discovery…a vintage original, factory installed “Ampeg” pick up. We had no idea what it was, nor had we ever seen one in person…way cool! We were surprised to find out this was some of the first pick-up systems designed in the early 1950’s. Something like this would normally be found on a more expensive bass…not a plain Jane Kay C-1 model. The pick up system was not complete as it was missing the floor jack and cord, the young man said he lost that part along time ago…dang…it was all in tact at one time…oh well. It is still a very cool piece of the Kay legacy.





The bass is now on the work bench, the pick up has been taken out so we can study it more. We both assume is does not work and we have no way to test it so it serves no useful purpose moving forward.




This bass is set to get the Bass Monkey spa treatment: new end pin, new tail gut, new bridge, new strings, dress the fingerboard (which is maple not rosewood), adjust the nut and saddle and maybe we will replace the missing volute…we shall see. We hope this is a fairly quick and painless project having just finished up a year long project. With festivals an outdoor yard work coming into season there will be little time spent in the work shop the coming months.