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I have been asked to help a friend restring his wife's double bass and basically do whatever is necessary to get it playing as good as possible. Can someone point me to a good tutorial on double bass action. It is an old Kay plywood bass, right now there is about 0.010 on the E and G strings at the nut, the relief as measured in the center of the fretboard with a straightedge resting at the ends is about 0.055, the action at the mid point of the strings ("12th fret") is 0.190 on the G and 0.250 on the E. There is a pretty significant groove down the fretboard under the E string.

She plays mainly a "slap style" I guess you call it, amplifies the bass with a mic at the bridge. As far as I can tell, the bass is structurally sound and the post is in place. The old strings are probably several years old, my friend new ones on order, and I just wanted to start getting ready.

Touch base with James Condino. http://condino.com

Yep, James is the man on those old Kay basses.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Thanks guys, I knew I had read some articles about repairing old double basses and now I remember that he was the author.

I found this one day, http://www.dennishavlena.com/bassetup.htm. That link has a pretty complete setup description.

I've got an old Kay too, a remnant of my folk and bluegrass days. Neck heel has a couple of cracks. I've got an old copy of "Stringed Instrument Craftsman" were Ken Donnell describes a repair done with a lag bolt (I think you have articles in there too, Mr. Pile). I'm gonna try it with a timber screw. The finish is cracking up and falling off in little flakes. I'm gonna try to stabilize it with a lacquer/retarder mix, then nitro clear coats. It'll be in the tradition of a "rat rod." The fingerboard is a big hunk of BRW (...sigh......all those bridges).