Epiphone update...

We are making progress a little bit at a time. The repairs are beginning to disappear under the artist color tinted to match the bass.



Lonnie’s first attempt looked good but was a bit too yellow/orange. So he tried again…this time it was too solid looking. He wiped the color off and started again, looking for the right shade.



My years in art school and hours of color theory I mentioned to Lonnie to add a little pure blue to the orange to tone it down. Orange and blue are opposite colors on the primary color wheel. Blending the right amounts of pure color will result in a dark grey black. I only mention this is passing to Lonnie on my way down stairs to start another load of laundry.



When I went back down stairs he was grinning from ear to ear. I looked at the bass *dang* that is the right color…what did you do? He just smiled and said you were right…just a touch of blue did the trick. He said how do I know that shit? Many, many hours of working with paint to make a 288 step color wheel in art school that I got a 3.8 grade. Color theory is burned into my brain.



The bass is really starting to take shape. Once all the touch up work is completed next is gluing in the neck. We have a plan to gig this bass several times before it heads back to the west coast and its rightful owner.



Stay tuned....

What is that?…I hear the sound of progress coming from the workshop!

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.

Progress on the Epi

Lonnie is making good progress on the neck. After 3’ of snow, working on this bass and long days at his real job…we are ready for some spring weather and festivals.



The filler to cover the biscuits under the pegbox

This has been all cut free hand at 7,000 RPM. There is no room for error!

Bottom up repairs

The repairs are a bit unconventional but if they prove to be strong and make this bass playable with the original neck still in tact it will be worth the hours and hours of work.

The bass is coming together and Lonnie hopes to be fitting the neck to the body in the next few weeks. The new ULSA end pin has been fit, the edges have been repaired, and color matched. The over all cosmetic condition of the bass is looking good. We hope to have this bass thumping by the time the spring flowers emerge. Stay tuned…Lonnie’s working hard!

Old man winter...

Howdy from Snowy southern PA!

Lonnie has not had too much time in the workshop because all we (he) has been doing is digging out from two back to back snow storms. The first storm packed a wallop on Saturday with 27” and then today another 24” with blizzard conditions. Spring must soon be on its way.

Saturday 2/6/10...

Today, Wednesday 2/10/10...

Earlier this week I came home to the sound of the banjo playing in the workshop. This is how Lonnie serenades the basses…or maybe it is torture. Either way I thought it was an interesting moment.

The Epiphone neck is being worked on bit by bit. Lonnie is happy with the way the repairs are coming together. If and when the snow stops he hopes to get back on track with the repairs. These two snow storms are history making events for us. We have never had two storms dump this much snow in four days.

Epiphone B-4

Lonnie is starting to make some real good progress on the bass. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.



The neck pieces have been glued and clamped together into one strong piece.

The work on the edges continue. There are some pretty big chunks that needed replaced.

The lower portion of the neck being fit together into one soild piece.

Some seam and edge details on the body. The body looks ot be in good shaped and gives a deep tone when you thump on it. We have high hopes this bass will be a good one!

The neck after the hide glue and clamps. It is all starting to come together.

Now that the neck has been “knit” together with hide glue, Lonnie is moving onto re-enforcing the injured areas. At this stage others would be driving in metal pins or using dry wall screws to re-enforce the neck. Lonnie has different plans, he want to avoid using “iron” in the repair. He is trying wooden biscuits. He has it all laid out in his head how he wants it to come together. There are still areas on the heel that are too tight to get into with a power tool in, those area’s will chiseled and re-enforced by hand, eye and skill the ole fashion way.

Things are looking up for this bass. We can’t wait for the repairs to be completed so we can move on to the set up…that is really the fun part. This bass is scheduled to get a new ULSA ebony end pin, Hi-tech tail gut, new Despiau bridge, and Thomastik Spirocore weich’s

….but it will be awhile until we are that far down the road.

Epi B-4 continued...

Today was an exciting day as the UPS man delivered some new power tools that will help Lonnie make a better repair...he is a happy, happy man!

Let’s see where we are…the scroll has been fit and glued on to the neck. All the puzzle pieces went together pretty well. Lonnie is now working on piecing together the parts to the heel of the neck.

Most Epiphone basses have a two piece neck which is one of the reasons for the larger turning of the scroll. There was more mass to the neck and they were not made from one solid piece of wood.



The nasty neck break has Lonnie working with three pieces too glue together. He is currently working on cleaning the wood and making shims for the neck repair. Once all the piece are fit back together, glued with fresh hide glue Lonnie will reinforce the neck with wooden pieces called biscuits.

What is going on in the workshop are tedious, time consuming repairs but they are absolutely necessary to bring this bass back to healthy playing condition.

This bass had a purple grey paint line around the front outside silhouette. The paint was to hide some previous repaired edge delamination. Lonnie has decided to go all the way on this bass and will remove the paint, repair the edges and custom color match the repair to the bass. This is a similar repair that he did on the 1942 Kay S-9 and that bass turned out beautifully. The fresh edge repairs really make the bass look like it has had an easy and caring owner…which this bass does.

Keep coming back for updates!

Epiphone B-4...

Have you ever stepped into the water to realize it was deeper then you could see from the shore? Well…that would describe this bass project.



From a distance the bass looked as if it needed a simple neck repair and a new set up, something we have done successfully in the past. Now having stepped very deep into the project there is much more to it then we expected. The epoxy glue was difficult to loosen and remove from the neck joint. It has caused many wood slivers and splintering to the neck. The normal steam and water used to loosen hide glue has caused the wood to discolor and twist. All in all…this is a difficult repair.



Lonnie has come to the conclusion this is not what we thought it was going to be…BUT…it does not matter. He will use his 30 years of skill and expertise to cobble these piece together in to a wonderful playing Epiphone bass. I have said before; don’t tell Lonnie it can’t be fixed. He will only dig in deeper to prove it can be fixed and not half ass’ed, but it can be fixed and done right!





He has moistened the piece of wood that have twisted, clamped them back together so the can dry in place…kind of using the memory in the wood to fit it back together. Once the entire piece will fit back together like a puzzle he will glue them together with HIDE GLUE and then begin to use pins to reinforce the repairs. If all of this goes well, the fractured repairs will knit together and this bass should be able to with stand the tremendous tension of the bass strings…no small feat.

For Lonnie the “thinking part” has now moved into the “doing part”. I have full confidence in his skills, persistence and patience.

This bass will swing again.