New Mahogany Heel

Sometime in the past, this bass had the neck re-glued at the wrong angle. WIth epoxy. So the whole damn thing came apart like a fart.

The glue they used on this bass in the 70's wasn't the best, and here's the result.

New mahogany block, being carved for a new heel.

More carving.

Even more carving.

Still more carving.

Perfect fit!

Clamped up, lined up and glued.

More to come once finishing starts. Adios.

Blast from the Past

Fact: old-school Steinberger basses are hollow:

The body and neck were moulded from one section of graphite, and the top (with electronics) was attached via allen-head bolts through the back of the body.

Happy freaking new year.

Broken Truss Rod

Today was spent mainly working on a bass with a broken truss rod. The fretboard had to be removed, the truss rod replaced, and the board re-glued, restored and levelled.

Look out! Hot knife!

Fretboard removed.

Busted truss rod.

Routing template for new rod.

Routed and new rod installed.

Guide dowel for aligning the board during re-glue.

Stabbed my finger removing the melted fret markers. Watch it, kids.

Kept going, though.

Levelling! Check out the dip at the 12th fret. That's got to go.

Re-radiusing. The chalk shows what's left to be done.

Fret markers installed and epoxied in place.

That's all for now, more once I get back to the workbench. Dig it.

Welcome to The Salt Mine

Welcome to the Salt Mine, the guitar and bass repair and modification blog for the workshop of Bass People in Annandale, Sydney. As the on-site technician and repairer, I see all kinds of instruments with all kinds of problems, and usually take detailed photos of what's involved in getting them up to scratch.

To start off, here's a video of an in-house modification performed on a MTD Z5 bass.