This bass neck hit a tree while riding in the back of a golf cart. The owner wants a new neck installed.
My assistant, Matt Hannafin, in the background.
Fingerboard removal.
New neck from Shen. Hot off their CNC and the slow boat from China.
The new neck from Shen was very beefy and needed quite a bit of work to match the shape of the old neck.
Cleaning things up.
Matthew Hannafin did a great job of cleaning up the mortise, as seen here.
I had to use a shim to achieve the correct overstand with the new neck that was sent to the shop. I was hesitant to use a shim for a new neck, but after talking to the Shen people on the phone I was assured by them that a shim for a new Shen bass neck is standard practice. Samuel Shen said so himself.
I don't want to say how many shims I made until I had just the right fit, but it was a lot.
Here's the new neck freshly glued into the body after lots of time was spent fitting.
I glued the fingerboard on with the instrument still in the white, which isn't what you're supposed to do; but due to time constraints and keeping costs down for the customer I glued the fingerboard down and cleaned everything up before applying a thin finish. Can't say I regretted it too much, but I'll do what I can to avoid ever doing it that way again.
I think I took this picture at 4 in the morning.
I won't give away Shen's finishing recipe, but here's the bass with finish applied.
And here we are, all set up! Customer told me that the bass sounds (and looks) better than ever.
Thanks, Hannafin, for helping out. I really couldn't have done it by myself.
Here's a peek at my shop and what you see when you walk in the door. I am operating officially from 1pm - 7pm Monday though Friday and 1pm - 5pm on Saturdays. I'm also available by appointment. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about my services.
Fingerboard removal. 
New neck from Shen. Hot off their CNC and the slow boat from China.
The new neck from Shen was very beefy and needed quite a bit of work to match the shape of the old neck.
Cleaning things up.
Matthew Hannafin did a great job of cleaning up the mortise, as seen here.
The plastic binding on this Martin has shrunk slightly and become loose.
The customer told me that she had the binding re-glued by another luthier, but it had started to come back off in less than a year's time. I decided to fix it right by removing all of the binding, cleaning it up with a scraper, then re-gluing it using acetone to soften the celluloid plastic before gluing it back with PVA glue.
A little bit of touch up work and it's lookin' real good.
Another bridge ready to be re-glued. This one is for a nice Larrivee from the late 80's.
This sweet small body acoustic made in Hoboken, NJ Guild came in for a new nut and saddle as well as some brace and crack repair. I would have loved to do a partial re-fret on it, but the customer was only in town for five days and just wanted me to make it "playable".
The original saddle was melted and warped with the saddle slot. Making a new saddle for a distorted saddle slot is a little more work than usual, but the new one fits nice and snug.
Vintage Chiquita sticker
The nut slots were extremely low and the strings were fretting out. Whatever the nut was glued on with, wouldn't let go. Pieces of the bottom of the nut had to be cleaned off of the nut shelf.
Made in Hoboken, NJ "ghost" label
