August 13, 2022 Just put up a one-owner Kay M-1 from 1955 and a great fully-carved Budil from a high-end jazz club: This Dittrich just took a huge price break, and this century-old Morelli has a fresh Upton restoration!
Double Bass Repair & Restoration
An inside view of Upton Bass String Instrument Co.'s Instrument Repair & Restoration Workshop. Our sister website, www.StringRepair.com was originally created to communicate with our clients about the progress of their project, as well as to better display our double bass repair & restoration capabilities in conjunction with UptonBass.com. StringRepair.com was launched in 2005 and was one of the first active repair blogs on the web, opening the door to better transparency to the client from the back room of the workshop.
Today, Upton Bass String Instrument Co. continues to offer world-class repairs of all instruments in the violin family, and our active repairs are showcased below and on the following pages.
While StringRepair.com is not actively updated today, we keep it up as it's become a great reference source for many workshops worldwide. We hope you enjoy the collection!
Travis Book – Basses Into the Fray!
Another update from bluegrass road warrior Travis Book – a new album with The Infamous Stringdusters drops midnight TONIGHT and another Grammy nomination are nice ways to get through the winter! “On behalf of the Dusters, I’m so excited to be releasing Toward the Fray Friday, Feb 18 on our record label, Americana Vibes –…
Jazz Night in America Tribute 2021
John and Sachi Patitucci recorded this tribute in our bass loft last month for NPR’s Jazz Night in America. NPR notes: “As we took stock of our losses, we realized that the low end was hit hardest and felt compelled to feature a bassist in this year’s visual tribute. John Patitucci and his wife, cellist Sachi Patitucci,…
Nicest left-handed Upton bass yet?
Standing back to admire this Brescian model, Eric remarked, “This has gotta be one of the nicest left-handed basses we’ve ever built!” This fully carved flatback will be our current benchmark for sure – not only for its lefty orientation, but as a varnish color reference. Chris amazes again with this beautiful warm amber requested…
Oreste Martini Double Bass, 1925 Gallery
Here’s a gallery of the fully restored Oreste Martini double bass – one of the most thorough projects to date! There are so many elegant and stylish details on this instrument, not a line out of place. Eric has a great post below on all the steps involved in getting this damaged historic instrument to…
Martini Oreste Mantova 1925
Oreste Martini (1893-1957) learned his craft from the great Mantuan maker Stefano Scarampella. After his tutelage under master Stefano Scarampella, beginning at age 14, Martini was producing his own instruments by his early 20s. He began his career with a focus on double basses (reported to be a double bassist himself) but went on to…
Prescott Scroll
#TBT correcting the sins of past “luthiers” who cut into the scroll to mount an extension.
Mittenwald Double Bass and a trip down a rabbit hole…
THIS IS AN ACTIVE REPAIR, BE SURE TO CHECK BACK OFTEN! This is one of the great Mittenwald basses we have had through the shop. The varnish is to die for, and tone is even better! But, these things we like to haul around are BIG and AWKWARD, and sometimes you bump it on things. This…
American Standard Delaminations…
This American Standard double bass came in with a “loose” bass bar and arching deformations around the bridge/soundpost as well as the lower bout. Upon an internal inspection, the bass bar had not let go, the laminations had failed. We took off the top and were able to easily remove a layer of wood. Testing…
Too Much Tension…After & Before
For a change of pace, let’s start off with the finished pictures! This old bass has been restored, badly, numerous times before…with the most recent restoration utilizing a lot of epoxy and wood filler! The bass was brought in because it was feeling too tight, and the owner wanted to look at setup items…