Clinton Bell’s 1950 Kay Bass

In September, 2010 this guy called me named Clinton Bell. I don’t remember where he said he got my name. He runs a barber shop on Sand Mountain,AL. He said he had an old Kay Bass that he had purchased and asked if I’d work on it. I told him that bass fiddles weren’t my specialty but it seemed like I ended up working on a lot of them. He said he’d bring it to my shop a few days later. He showed up right on time and we took this bass in my shop and laid it on my table saw (with the blade lowered naturally). My shop is small and a bass fiddle can only fit out in the middle. I looked it over and saw that the top had come loose from the bass bar and someone had put some screws in it to hold it together.

My first reaction was to turn this job away.

 

This was rough. What in the world can I do with this? Look at this neck. Somebody had put some kind of epoxy of some such material in this broken neck.

Can you spell rough?

 

Clinton seemed to really want this thing fixed and I wasn’t real busy, so I agreed to remove the top and see if I could shape it up.

When I got the top off, I was in for a surprise. This top was de-laminated severely. There was not anything to do for it but replace it.

Nothing to work with. I called him and told him to come get it. I said he didn’t owe me anything for what I’d done up to this point.

He said he really wanted to repair it and I agreed to try to find a new top for it.

I looked around on the web and Englehardt listed a new top but it was expensive. Englehardt bought Kay out years ago and they use the same patterns that Kay did. I looked around a little more and found this place called Jacks Music in Michigan. I called and talked to this guy. He was a dealer for Englehardt Basses and he gave me a price that was about half of what I’d gotten from the manufacturer. I ordered it from him and he had it shipped to me directly from the Englehardt Factory along with a Brazilian cherry fingerboard.

I spent a lot of time trying to do what I could for the back and sides of this bass. There was some de-lamination all over it. I worked some glue into all the places I could.

I didn’t know whether this bass would ever be playable again. I was skeptical about the sides and back. That plywood may not hold up for very long.

So I did what I could for the back and sides while I awaited the arrival of the new top.

The top arrived and it was a nice looking piece. It already had the f-holes cut and the bass bar attached.

Really a nice top.

Aside from not being flat like the old one, it was made slightly oversized. It had to be trimmed to fit this bass.

I carefully marked it and trimmed it to fit.

Then I attached it to the body.

Glued down.

Now the edges had to be trimmed to fit.

It is starting to look like a bass fiddle body again.

All trimmed and shaped. The edges had to be rounded over.

Now for that neck. The fingerboard obviously needed to be replaced.

Removing the fingerboard.

Pieces of the old fingerboard.

I first leveled the top section of the neck.

The substance that was used to repair it before appeared to be strong and stable. I shaped a little maple piece to reinforce the back side of the neck.

Not the prettiest repair in the world but one that I hope will be strong and stable.

I stained the new top as closely as I could to the original color.

Then I sprayed some lacquer on it and mixed up some darker color to mimic the old finish.

I thought my color match was pretty good.

Here is a shot of the top after I’d painted the fake purfling on it. The fingerboard I got from the manufacturer was severely bowed. I had a piece of wood that I used to fabricate a fingerboard.

The neck doesn’t look like a new one but I thought it looked pretty good considering what we started with. Looking back on it, I’d have probably been better off to put a new neck in it. There is a limit to what you financially can do to an old instrument like this. It really needed a new top, back, sides, neck, and fingerboard. Do you get my drift?

Here is the fingerboard after it was stained.

The painted on purfling.

Finished product.

This made a really good sounding bass.I think the owner is still happy with it. It has now been over 9 years since this repair.