double trouble

[FRANK]

hey guys and Gals I am always up for suggestions from this crowd I have a customer with a double bass .and she dropped it this morning it has a crack about a foot long not to hard to fix i think i am gona use tight bond #1 for this cleat it up with about 6 or 7 appropriate cleats drill a hole at the end of the crack so it dose not want to grow larger..Here it is popping up a little like it dose not want to go back to form and it is only separated by maby .040 where the one side of the crack is lower than the other what would you do to fix this if you have understood me right here are the photos its where the rim side is a bit higher than the rest of the side ?

[Ron Frazier]

Do you have any spool clamps? You can glue it together with white glue as it stays wet longer and you can move the sides in to fit by wedges against the spool.

Another way would be to clamp it all together dry than use super glue and wick it into the crack. Do just a very little and before it dries wipe it off fast so as not to leave any on the sides.

I had a 1/2 size base that was left outside under the eves of the house and in the morning it was full of water. The plywood top and bottom came unlamented so around 10 bottles of super glue it was playing that weekend to go to Weiser Oregon for the fiddle contest. I saw it the other day and the owner Had sanded it down and stained and varnished it and it is still going strong!

Ron

[FRANK]

Well I have found a new way to play with the play of the crack with a suction cup pop it on and pull it works good looks like i need to rig up maby 3 cups and pull a bit on each one then glue and cleat it up i haven't done anything yet i am making a plan for tomorrow

[William F.Eden]

I guess the crack is on the back side of the bout? If i were fixing it and one side of the crack was not lining up with the other I would build myself a jig to reach from neck end to allmost the bottom end so I could clamp it and pull the two joints together unless you have clamps that will reach that far glue and clamp it the other way. As for the cleats I don't know how you are going to get them in that far through the F holes .Good luck Bill.""""""""""""

[FRANK]

William this is how i would cleat one way to do it i used a tuner and a block of wood and 2 strings you can see inside the cleat lays on top of the kurfing so i am not going to cleat this project anyway but some new info for you see the cleat on the top end of the photo a little square

[FRANK]

William can you draw a better picture of the jig you suggested? to reset the crack

[FRANK]

SO ALL IN ALL I JUST SQUEEZED TIGHTBOND IN AND CLAMPED IT UP IT CRACKED BEHIND THE KURFFING SO THE ONLY THING I COULD DO IS FILL THAT WITH GLUE

[Mike Kolb]

Yep, the tuner-and-string blocks work wonders for lining-up misaligned sides. A few of those in conjunction with a handle of spool clamps should do the trick. Through trial and error, I get better results by backing the inside cleats with a small square of 1/8" acrylic.... they won't stick to the cleat and keep the string ball from cracking the cleat when drawing the tension up tight. I made about 7 or 8 up from mahogany blocks, and a couple have radius'd faces for working on the waists. God bless Don Teeter...

[FRANK]

YEA COOL I DID NOT NEED THEM THIS TIME I USED SUCTION CUPS PULLED GLUED AND CLAMPED