10/19/2026
This was a tough repair!
An inner city school needed this 12/18th size Chinese bass to work again, but the repair cost was well beyond their budget. To do it right, the back had to come off and the block had to be stripped of all the old glue and remounted before even attempting the neck reset. They said “do what ever it takes but keep it under $450”.
I considered turning it into a bolt-on neck design but I knew it wouldn’t have the strength to take another fall.
So I decided to route and install a tenon into the dovetail.
I started by clamping it to the leg of a table. Then I made a jig that allowed my router to run on.
It worked great.
Then I had to make a mirror image slot in the block. I used double stick tape on the pine tenon I made to locate the spot. When I removed the neck, the pine tenon stayed in place, and it told me where to route. Remember, if I get that wrong, the neck sits in the wrong spot.
I designed another jig to route the tenon slot into the block.
After some chiseling I got the slot done. At this point I made a longer maple tenon for more strength.
A dry fit proved that my slots lined up!
I stripped as much glue as I could and glued it and clamped it up. I realized, as I had suspected from the start, that I could not come up with a clamping system that would hold the side against the block.
Reluctantly I used screws and they worked perfectly. Not great looking but for a school bass, just fine!
The bridge had been lost along the way and the school said they would order one and do that themselves.
So I made a makeshift MDF bridge to help me line everything up. It actually plays and sounds great with this bridge!
Saved, and now the kids can make music again!
