Making a double bass

[Adam Edwards]

I'm sorry this has happened to you Roger , maybe in the fullness of time you may let this one slide . We Value your contributions and vast level of knowledge and understanding. Best Adam

[Jeffrey Holmes]

This message is just to say that I am not writing anything more for Maestronet until I have a good explanation as to why my comments on the Boston blog were deleted without any consultation. 

 

Hi Roger;

 

I assure you that the thread was not removed due to your comments, nor for some political agenda.  You are welcome to email me anytime, and I will give you answers to your questions and concerns honestly and fully.

[James M. Jones]

Whatever happened to the concept of "free speech?"

Nothing ...MN is not a publicly held forum, it is open to the public, much like a tavern ,where the owners /management can and do reserve the right deny access ...the owners allow us to be here. There is no publicly derived money creating this site .so the rules of free speech do not apply with in this forum.

The deleted thread ...

1) Had little to nothing to do with violin making.

2) Was about to devolve into a tooth and nail cat fight...

3) Had a very small chance of finding any equilibrium here, given memberships ability to chomp down on things, like a pit bull

While it may be uncomfortable to have thoughts and ideas moderated ,I think that, because this is a multilistic/ pluralistic society we are creating here, we would be best to limit the debate on our different points of view,to things like what sort of glue to use for a nut job....6 pages .... or what the finger board nick might be for ....? pages ....... as I heard someone say "It's all about those pissy little details"  

    Rodger ..., As my elder and, from what I've witnessed and heard of you,one of the,most ethical, experienced ,talented and prolific makers/writers here ,I  ask you to please stay and contribute your voice to this conversation.    

[Jeffrey Holmes]

Thank you James.  Well said and correct.  I wrote Roger privately with an explanation...  In truth, I'd planned to take the thread down before other members responded to the OP, and had only left it thinking some might find the link useful... but (god forbid) I took most of a day off and away from the computer to accomplish a favor for a friend.

 

Now, I'm especially interested in the various glues available for nut jobs...  as I know many... and can probably include myself in the group every now and then.

 

I'd really hate to see Roger's excellent bass thread be marginalized or lose focus through further discussion about an unrelated thread, so I will ask that members now please return to the subject.

[David Frederick]

If possible, I vote this thread be pinned when (if?) finished, for future reference.

Very valuable information Roger has given us...

[Jeffrey Holmes]

If possible, I vote this thread be pinned when (if?) finished, for future reference.

Very valuable information Roger has given us...

 

Agreed.  A link now appears the "reference" thread that is pinned just above the general discussions.

[Roger Hargrave]

First of all I would like to thank all of those many people including Jeffrey Holmes, that have been so suportive. I would also like to say that quite unintentionally I probably crossed the fine non-political line. Those that know me well, will know that this has always been one of my weaknesses, although I have no doubts that it is also one of my strong points too. So I will continue with this thread as promised. However, I will not be working on the base for some time because Rene will be comming to my workshop next and until the bass arives here there will be nothing to report. Thanks again, R

[Oded Kishony]

I normally lower the wings on the F holes after the instrument is assembled and strung up-at this point, with the instrument at full tension, I make whatever adjustments are needed for the F holes to perfectly line up with the corpus. I generally leave a little extra wood around the F's for this.

 

Thickness above and below the F's are especially significant acoustically.

 

Oded

[James M. Jones]

I normally lower the wings on the F holes after the instrument is assembled and strung up-at this point, with the instrument at full tension, I make whatever adjustments are needed for the F holes to perfectly line up with the corpus. I generally leave a little extra wood around the F's for this.

 

Thickness above and below the F's are especially significant acoustically.

 

Oded

I've been lowering the wings before gluing the top ,not all the way parallel to the ribs ,but towards that direction, I'm wondering how much people believe the ff's have fallen or moved over time and what consequences that lowering might have as the instrument folds with time. Some of the old work had very low wings.?????

On the thicknesses, would you describe the effects ,I learned from my teacher that over thinning below the ff's contributes to wolf notes...but I lack the courage to really try the experiment,being the gut less wonder that I am. 

[Oded Kishony]

I agree that 'overthinning' is likely to result in possible wolf notes but l have not noticed that leaving the area thicker prevents wolfiness either.

Oded

[Roger Hargrave]

I don't lower wings for accousical reasons. I don't think that this makes the slightest difference except if they get too thin. I do this purely for optical reasons.

[Roger Hargrave]

Rodger thanks for the wonderful thread/ it occurred to me while looking at the Basses during VSA that any one making a Bass should at least get a bronze.... what a body of work!  ...

   My question is, would you mind describing the cutters angle? I made one but I think the angle is too steep to be effective. they are a little bit of work to make, and it sure would be nice to have a known target to hit.

 Sorry I did not get back to you earlier James. I kept forgetting to measure them. The angle is 60°. 

[James M. Jones]

Roger , thanks for the reply, a 60 degree cut area gives a 30 degree cutting edge , I filled mine to 90 on the inside giving 45 ...way to steep for smooth cutting.... a simple triangle file will work well for cutting the notch . thanks!

[James M. Jones]

Roger , thanks for the reply, a 60 degree cut area gives a 30 degree cutting edge , I filled mine to 90 on the inside giving 45 ...way to steep for smooth cutting.... a simple triangle file will work well for cutting the notch . thanks!

works a charm!

NOW I can competently move ahead making more ...,thanks!

[Roger Hargrave]

So, this last Monday Rene brought the bass over to my Meyenburg workshop from his place in Bemmel (Holland).  I am sure that it feels a little cramped in my comparatively small workshop after the luxury of his noble establishment.  

 

It only remained for the button to be finalised before I have to clean everything up for varnishing. As I pointed out earlier the neck root was finished almost completely before the neck was glued in. This always saves a great deal of time and effort. The first job was to establish the buttons width by rasping and filing it down to the width of the neck root. Here accuracy when preparing the neck root and the mortise are all important. Some Cremonese makers did not always manage this. On some original buttons, the central compass/dividers point on the button does not correspond with the back joint. Nevertheless, no matter how central it sits, this pin point was usually set slightly higher than the outer edge. This higher position allows the circle to come back on itself slightly matching the button to the chin of the scroll. I have included a photo of an Andrea Guarneri viola that I am making to illustrate my point. (And yes, the holes in the purfling channel are intentional.) Most of this pin prick was removed when the buttons thickness was tapered down to the edge thickness, but they are often still visible on original Cremonese buttons.

 

With the width established I marked a circle on the button. On the bass this was tricky because of the extreme angle of the neck root. Before finalizing the root I had to be sure that the button would end up being the correct height when it was blended into the neck. Having established the shape I finished the back and belly overhangs and applied the buttons chamfer. In keeping with my wish to give this bass the look of an old instrument I finally softened everything. 

 

The obvious next stage is the varnishing process. However members will have to be patient, because before I begin I need to build a new drying cabinet. My old one is big enough for cellos, but the bass will simply not fit. Moreover, in the meantime I need to finish two violas and a violin. These have been badly neglected because of this project. However, because of the size of this particular monster I will also need to start preparing several additional items for the varnishing process. I will talk about these items as and when they are being prepared.  (See also post #100)

[jacobsaunders]

 

 

The obvious next stage is the varnishing process. However members will have to be patient, because before I begin I need to build a new drying cabinet. My old one is big enough for cellos, but the bass will simply not fit.   

 

Can’t you just hang it on the washing line in the garden? Isn’t having a gigantic Bass drying cabinet standing in the way in the house going to provoke “Domestic tension”?

[Roger Hargrave]

Domestic tension is my middle name. Don't pretend that you have not noticed.

[Oded Kishony]

You may want to consider temporarily converting a closet into a drying cabinet. Mount the lights on panels that can be easily removed after the project is finished. A computer fan mounted in the panel, blowing away from the instrument could provide some air movement.

 

AND/OR

 

A substitute door could be fitted with a bank of lights and  exhaust fans and the instrument made to rotate.

  

just my  .02

Oded

[Roger Hargrave]

I don't have a big enough closet, but I might turn the drying cabinet into an indoor sports stadium when I have finished with the varnishing. 

[Roger Hargrave]

One of Brian Hart's tools that really came in handy was the fret saw that he made for me. I had it made for cellos, but it works on bass soundholes as well as violins. I asked him to make one that turns in all directions and this is what he came up with; genius. I have also posted a picture of my V shaped board that features in my rasping the outline post. I use it for cutting out soundholes. (Unfortunately too small for the bass)

[Roger Hargrave]

I came to violin making from an art college background. For three years from 1967 I studied fine arts with emphasis on portrait painting. But it was the late 60’s, and what I had learned was more about painting and decorating than about painting techniques. Nevertheless I was a good draftsman and I did at least learn how and where to look for the relevant information. I got into the music business through my skills as a painter. I was asked if I could paint copies of Flemish harpsichord lids and soundboards. With the confidence of youth I remember saying, “Sure that should be no-problem!”  

 

From there I went on to building harpsichords and spinets. This was where I was introduced to and fell in love with, the world of Gambas and fiddles. By the mid 1970’s I had started a three year violin making course at the Newark school. I began varnishing my first violins at the Newark School back in the 1970’s. We had some help from Wilf Saunders and Glen Collins. Wilf, who taught us one day each week, showed us how to make simple oil varnishes. Glen taught us how to varnish using shellac, an underrated skill that has proved its worth over the years. But for the most part, as students we were left to our own devices. The years above my year in the school were still very secretive and we as a group had to find our own way. At that time secrecy was still the rule. It did not take us long to understand that the biggest secret that most makers had was that they did not have any secrets. Perhaps it was the times. Perhaps it was sheer desperation, but our year group banded together and we also had good communications with the two year groups that entered the school after us. It was a lucky and very heady mixture of talent. We began making Michelman, Fry and Fulton varnishes. I devoured books that I should have read at art school; Eastlake, Mayer, Doerner, Merrifield and the like. And before leaving Newark I had amassed a fine collection of rare books about varnish and pigments manufacture. Many of these came from libraries that had begun to downsize with the onset of advancing Thatcherism. Hurst’s, ‘Painters Colours Oils and Varnishes’, only 3 known copies in the UK. Perkin and Everest, ‘The Natural Organic Colouring Matters’. Livache and Mc Intosh, ‘Varnishes Oil Crushing, Refining and Boiling and Kindred Industries’.  Laurie, ‘Pigments and Mediums of the Old Masters’. (this may have been reprinted). Heaton Outlines of Paint Technology’. And of course the wonderful Series of Workshop Receipts for Manufacturers Mechanics and Scientific Amateurs.

 

All of these books and many more had me psyched up to the max, and by the time I went to work for the Hills, I had tried almost everything and anything that might work. I became so good at making emulsions, that I was able to shock a visiting French family that was having trouble making mayonnaise. They had been giving me a hard time about English cooking, but that stopped when I rescued their rather pathetic attempts to emulsify eggs and oil. My wife still tells the story of our honeymoon in South Germany which I spent climbing many of the regions cherry trees in order to collect the extruded gum. She prefers to forget the time when we had just redecorated our bedroom and I exploded a madder experiment onto the ceiling. It looked very much like a sixties tie-dye T shirt. We eventually sold the house with this Jackson Pollock bedroom design still evident. Fortunately it was still available for sale, because I almost blew up the house making Nitro-Rosinates, which, as I later found out, are closely related to Nitro Glycerin).

 

And so it went on. I made lakes and caseins, I cooked and washed oils and fused resins. I spent a small fortune on raw materials, some of which, like the books, are sadly no longer available. But the real work began when I went to work for the Macholds. Whatever else they might have done, their workshop became a hive of learning. It was here that I developed the first series Strad posters, which Machold financed. And it was here that I was reacquainted with Julie Reed, Jacob Saunders and Koen Padding who all came to Bremen to work as restorers. It was here that Koen Padding and I began searching again for the Holy Grail. In my mind I am not exactly sure how far we two and the others actually got, before the events at Macholds gave us all nervous breakdowns, and Koen myself and several others left and went our separate ways. While I tried to make as a living a violin maker Koen was persuaded to work for his father’s company, making high quality printing inks. (See, ‘Tribute to Koen Padding‘ in ‘The Pegbox‘).

 

We stayed in constant touch, exchanging ideas. Koen sent me his experiments and I sent him my experiences with both his and my own experiments. Since his death people have been asking me what the constituents of Koen’s varnishing system were. Well the answer is that although I know something about his methods, I do not know exactly how he made his various products. For this reason I can only tell you how I make and apply my varnishes, and this changes from instrument to instrument. These changes depend upon what I am copying and my mood at the time. I have always tried to keep the process simple. I have never liked complex recipes and methods. So in the next weeks it will be my system (similar but not the same as Koen's system) that I will be describing. I will also try and say something about how I came to develop my present methods. In the meantime if anyone wishes to try the system that I will be using I suggest that they go out and purchase a kilo bag of simple 'Plaster of Paris. Don't get any fancy quick drying or high quality stuff that might have additives.    

[Michael_Molnar]

You gave up on casein?

[Roger Hargrave]

You gave up on casein?

 

Yes on Varnishes and varnish grounds, but Casein is a great glue and I suspect it was used for many things on violins that we would frown upon today. This might include ribs to corner blocks, back and belly joints, and back and belly to rib joints. It is also likely that the neck was nailed and glued with Casein.  

[James M. Jones]

I'm captivated ..thank you Rodger.

Quick dumb question on nailing necks ...were the necks fit to the body ..or the body to the neck? That is was a flat cut on the sides or was the neck heal relived.

[Roger Hargrave]

I'm captivated ..thank you Rodger.

Quick dumb question on nailing necks ...were the necks fit to the body ..or the body to the neck? That is was a flat cut on the sides or was the neck heal relived.

 

There is not much to work from, but the necks were not fitted to the body they were fitted to the ribs before the body was finished. I have only seen one removed Cremonese neck, an Andrea Guarneri violin. This was very roughly shaped to fit the rib curve (as the rib passed over the top block in one unbroken piece). The real strength of such a joint lies not in the nails or glue that fix it to the rib, but in the (usually) clean joint between the neck root and the button. This is also the case with modern necks.