Workshop: William Booth II Double Bass Ep 25, Setting the Neck and Tom Testing the Instrument
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- Опубліковано 21 лип 2022
- In this final episode, Ian works on fitting the neck into the body of the double bass before we set it up and make final adjustments. Setting the neck is very important as it must be set correctly so that it is straight and the tension of the strings goes straight down the middle of the front. You must also consider the overstand where the neck comes out of the body and also the bridge height. These are important as they affect the tension over the bridge and down the strings, but also the playability with the bow.
If you look closely at the bottom of the butt of the neck where Ian has marked out the shape in pencil, it is not precisely straight. The neck is not straight because, over the years, the top block has moved and is no longer square. If we were to put this in totally square with the block, it would mean that the neck was not straight over the front of the instrument.
The other element that must be considered is the length of the neck. This will ultimately decide the string length and where the notes sit on the instrument. If you put a neck in that is too short for the body, then the notes will travel down the instrument. When deciding the neck length, you must consider the body stop. This is the measurement from where the bridge sits on the front to the top of the top block.
This is a five-string double bass, so it is accepted that the string length can be a bit longer as often the double basses are larger and just used for orchestra.
Ian part fits the neck into the body by slowly trimming down the neck butt until it fits fairly well. Once we have a pretty good fit, we will glue on the fingerboard and in the final stages, we will adjust the pocket that the neck goes in to make the final adjustments.
We fit the neck with a few millimetres to go as wood can move a little even overnight, which could mean that the neck no longer fits as you would want. The neck is then shaped to be a comfortable thickness, and the peg box is chopped out and shaped. Dan works on this for Ian before he takes back over to do the final fitting.
Once the neck is glued in and finished, Dan works on the varnish before setting the double bass up. Final adjustments are made to the set-up with George and Tom so that the double bass is comfortable to play and reacts in the right way.
Music: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston - www.gardnermuseum.org
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Great series! Too bad we didn't see the varnish matching though, I was excited to see that beautiful process.
Nice to see it finally complete and played! 🎻
Truly amazing work. Bravo. And it sounds wonderful. Bravo to Tom also.
Terrific ! Watched the whole series in a row !
superb craft and a wonderful sounding instrument.
Whoever added a 5th string to the Bass did an amazing job. Again the 5th String is hanging off the side of the fingerboard. By raising the height of the bridge and the overstand (this is done by angeling the neck back further), it relieves tension from the top which means that the Low B String on these just sounds huge.