My old standup bass is in need of repair. When it was given to me, the head piece was broken off and the top was mostly unglued. I glued & screwed the headpiece back on and reglued the entire top back on with yellow wood glue (titebond) and have been playing it for 6 months.
Now the whole neck has loosed due to some of the old glue failing between the sides and the neck. I have removed the neck completely and now need to take the top back off to reglue (and reinforce) the neck attachment point; so I need to somehow unglue the Titebond wood glue joint to remove the entire top.
I have a big plastic bag and was thinking of steaming the whole thing to help loosen the glue. Any ideas?
GOtta run now, but I'll check back in later.
careful with the big bag idea. likely to loosen and deform every panel. looks like an archtop, right? could be a job for a luthier. if you do it wrong, might sound murky
chase these links, might help:
Luthier
yeah, that's what everyone tells me; but I'm a do-it-yourself kind of guy. The bass sounded pretty murky anyway (and not much volume). It was cobbed up pretty good when I got it with an additional sound post because of a big crack in the back (where the real sound post pushed against). I removed the extra sound post and glued a thin piece of cherry to reinforce the back and it sounded a little better.
I think I'm going to go for it and try to take it completely apart and reassemble it.
hey, thanks for the link.
Luthier
another angle for removing the back panel. get a small squeeze bottle full of methylene chloride. put a medium hypodermic through the lid, controls the flow. run that across the glue join a couple times. this crystallizes wood glue. use sparingly, it will also vaporize the finish. so expect to do some patch finishing
Luthier
And don't breathe the stuff.
Methylene Chloride - see toxicity
MSDS
>
> I need to somehow unglue the Titebond wood glue joint to remove the entire top.
>
That's why luthiers use hide glue. Lot easier to unglue.
If you try the methylene chloride, don't get any on yourself, either. They used to use it for asphalt extraction in the materials lab at the DOT. The guys thought it was funny that they could smell it on their breath within seconds of skin contact. Until somebody explained the implications to them.
See:
The president of the company is an amateur luthier. As a result, he has designed a complete line of power tools for the luthier. Don't know what you'll find at the site, but it is a USA connection ...
