Ouch!!!!!!

GSPBASSES

I’m just getting ready to put my coat on to go away for the weekend, when there’s a knock on the door. I open it and it’s my friend Steve, he is professional bass player. He plays in orchestras and bands, most of his life he spends on cruise ships going up and down the Mediterranean, or on Caribbean cruises, world cruises as well. When he’s not doing that is normally in the orchestra pit in the West End.

Anyway, he hands me bass, says it’s got crack in the headstock. Any chance of getting it fixed by Monday morning, as he is going off to North Wales to play in a panto. I take the base out of its case and find it’s a little bit more than a crack.

More when I’m back next week.

ICBM

Ouch. Unfortunate you're going away - if it's as clean a break as it appears, it should have been possible to fix it overnight… Titebond, clamp it and then reassemble in the morning.

At least as a professional he will have a spare bass… won't he?

stickyfiddle

Crikey. Good luck!

joeyowen

Which panto? I'm off to see one on boxing day, and I'm in north Wales! 

paulnb57

Oops! Keep us updated!...

Plectrum

joeyowen said:

Which panto? I'm off to see one on boxing day, and I'm in north Wales! 

  Just look for someone in the orchestra playing air bass

octatonic

joeyowen said:

Which panto? I'm off to see one on boxing day, and I'm in north Wales! 

Oh no you're not!

koneguitarist

Guy brought in a Gibson NightHawk to me with a broken headstock on a Tuesday and asked could I fix it before his wife found it on the Friday. Luckily clean break and it was sorted with some glue and nail varnish. 
Machine break could take longer to replace/repair.

GSPBASSES

 

The headstock is now repaired, wasn't quite as straightforward as I was hoping as some small splinters of the wood were missing. The other problem was there was some hairline cracks in the maple, normally I would use Chair Doctor glue to fix the cracks, but I wasn't sure if the glue will get down into the cracks to make sure they did not open up again. I decided that once the main repair was done, I would sand the finish off front and back of the headstock and reduced the thickness by about 1mm, so I could put a veneer on the back and front of the headstock.

 

First job was to make a pair of jigs to fit either side of the headstock to protect it from the clamps.

 

After the first part the repair was completed I glued on a maple veneer on the back and front. I decided by doing this, when it was clamped up glue will be forced into the hairline cracks, also the veneer I used the grain is going across the headstock instead of with it as the with the wood in the neck, this should add some strength to the repair. I do not do spray finishing any more so repair had an oil finish applied.

 

I let the glue dry on the whole repair for a few days before I reassembled the bass.

 

Slightly off-topic, if anyone has doubts how tough RPC is,   this bass was built just over 19 years ago, it has really stood up well to constant use by a professional player.

english_bob

Nice. It's a shame that you can't see the laminates on the headstock any more. On balance, it would be much more of a shame to have to retire a bass that's been with you for 19 years because a half-measure repair made it too fragile to be reliable.

What's RPC?

WezV

Rustin's Plastic Coating - used by Braian May on the red special, and many other guitar builders since

english_bob

WezV said:

Rustin's Plastic Coating - used by Braian May on the red special, and many other guitar builders since

Would never have guessed that. I thought it must be something to do with the way the bass was constructed.

Reinforced...something.

JudasVigilante

Really nice work. This reminds me of the one and only occasion I broke a guitar. A cheap (sub 200 quid) Epiphone acoustic fell over on concrete floor. The headstock broke off at about 1 inch down the neck. I thought the guitar was done for, but luckily a friend of mine who worked for Schecter at the time knew a Martin trained acoustic luthier type person. he had the guitar about 2 weeks, the bill was £70 and the guitar is perfect to this day, some 20 yrs later. In fact I was playing it last night. I wouldn't have bothered fixing it, but it was signed with messages etc from my then friends and bandmates at Uni. Sorry for the long story, basically there are people in the world, like yourself and the Martin guy who can work wonders with virtually any mishap.