The Untimely Death Of Kolstein Busetto

[Happy Jack]

[Happy Jack]

Once upon a time there was a bass, a happy bass, a bass that enjoyed being owned by Basschatters such as @bassace and @Clarky.

 

It was a fragile wee thing and needed a reasonable amount of upkeep and maintenance, because it always looked as if it was about to collapse into (as @Owen puts it) a bunch of matchsticks.

 

But I loved it to bits, played hundreds of gigs with it, and asked myself, "What's the worst that could happen?".

 

And then, one day, the worst happened.

 

Are you familiar with the expression an exploded diagram?

 

You are? Excellent! Here are some exploded photographs ...

 

 

[Happy Jack]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Happy Jack]

I took the debris back to Thwaites in Bushey. When they'd finished laughing, they said their preliminary estimate for repairs would be £2000 but that might well increase depending on what they found.

 

At which point I went off in a different direction.

 

So here I am with all the parts I need to make a broken, unplayable Kolstein Busetto. What to do ... what to do ...

 

I see three choices:

1. Chuck the whole lot in a skip and walk away quickly, whistling tunelessly and looking unconcerned;
2. Break for parts and sell them individually - there's some good stuff there for them's as wants it;
3. Try and be at least a little imaginative.

So here's my Starter For 10. Everything you see in those photos (and nothing you don't see) is free to any Basschatter who has a genuine use for some/all of the parts, perhaps for the repair of DBs, perhaps for some weird EUB project (who knows?), but above all someone who will make sensible, constructive use of all this stuff.

 

I don't have a Jiffy bag large enough to take all this, so we're talking either collection from Harrow HA1 or a sociable beer somewhere not too, too far from here.

 

[Beedster]

I’ve seen worse, I could do that but I would do an average job and probably never play it, it needs better than me 👍

[petebassist]

It's a beautiful looking instrument, I hope someone puts it back together, like the six-million dollar man. 

Best of luck...

[hubrad]

I had a similar Chinese made thing about 10 or so years back.. it collapsed in on itself while waiting to play a gig; I took it for repair with a trusted friend, who told me the construction was crap but she'd do what she could. A few weeks later it collapsed again, so I scrapped it except for the neck which is decent and is now part of my ongoing project EUB.

More recently I bought an unashamed doer-upper Stentor DB with quite a few cracks and splits. My friend is now pretty much retired, and a DB would take up her whole workshop, so she taught me the basics of crack repair over the phone plus there's a ton of good stuff on YouTube. I've now played loads of gigs on is, love it, paid for itself times over!

Could be worth getting the basic techniques together yourself @Happy Jack!

[Clarky]

Noooooo! That bass gave 19 years of good service ... in my hands it played The Half Moon, Putney and Spice of Night, Soho among others. So sad to see it's demise but hopefully some BCers will take you up on your kind offer Jack

[bassace]

And it served me very well too. But from the get go there was something iffy about it, particularly the neck. In its life it had at least three cracks in different places so there must have been some dodgy wood used. And I kept it in an unheated room.

Here it is with past friends in happier times.

 

Edited Wednesday at 14:56 by bassace

[anon]

P.M’d

[Owen]

Sad times

[Burns-bass]

I have no need for it but I wish it well on its onward journey!

[JPJ]

Calling @Blartfactor10 a man with the necessary skills to rebuild him

[TheRev]

Christ.

It's a bit alarming that it fell apart like that. A well made bass should last more than 19 years and it's not like Kolsteins were cheap.

 

....must go check on my Eminence....

[Happy Jack]

OK, things have moved along pretty smartly and the Kolstein is now GONE.

 

I was contacted by a long-time lurker, a pro bassist who prefers to keep a very low profile so I'll mention neither his name nor that of his luthier, and his plan is to do as near a complete restoration to original as possible. He can then consider what mods - if any - he wants to make.

 

I've given him the bass (as in no money changing hands, although he did offer) on the agreement that he'll keep a photographic record of his work, what he discovers, what needs to be done. 

 

Since he doesn't post here, the plan is that he'll send his photos to me, and I'll post them here.

 

Sad to relate, his very first photo is desperately unhelpful ...

 

 

I had no idea that chunk/shard/splinter was missing and Thwaites didn't mention it when they inspected the bass. ☹️

 

I can only assume that it went 'ping' at the gig and was swept up by the cleaners the next next morning.

 

Ah well ...

 

[NickA]

I'm not surprised at £2k as a new scroll and the front off to fix the big crack is a lot of work ..and skilled "work" don't come cheap.  Lots of basses get skipped as the repair cost is more than the value ..which is a shame.

 

Hope the new owner can save it.

Edited Friday at 22:38 by NickA
..irrelevant twaddle deleted 😁.

[MacDaddy]

22 hours ago, Happy Jack said:

OK, things have moved along pretty smartly and the Kolstein is now GONE.

 

I was contacted by a long-time lurker, a pro bassist who prefers to keep a very low profile so I'll mention neither his name nor that of his luthier, and his plan is to do as near a complete restoration to original as possible. He can then consider what mods - if any - he wants to make.

 

I've given him the bass (as in no money changing hands, although he did offer) on the agreement that he'll keep a photographic record of his work, what he discovers, what needs to be done. 

 

Since he doesn't post here, the plan is that he'll send his photos to me, and I'll post them here.

 

Sad to relate, his very first photo is desperately unhelpful ...

 

 

I had no idea that chunk/shard/splinter was missing and Thwaites didn't mention it when they inspected the bass. ☹️

 

I can only assume that it went 'ping' at the gig and was swept up by the cleaners the next next morning.

 

Ah well ...

 

 

 

So the headstock is fixed, all it took was a bit of tape?