Fritz Richmond - How to Make a Washtub Bass January, 1989
I had heard of a washtub bass, but I had never seen one. My friends, Buzz Marten and John Nagy played guitar and banjo so we thought it would be nice to have a bass.
In the basement we found a copper wash-boiler, poked a hole in the bottom, slid a knotted piece of clothesline (1/4" cotton rope) through the hole and tied the other end to a piece of hockey stick about 4' long. Returning to the kitchen, I placed the wash-boiler on the floor upside down and set the stick upright on the edge. Holding the thing down with my right foot, I tightened the rope by pulling back on the stick. We started a tune and what do you know the thing actually made notes.
After only a couple of tunes the knot pulled through the soft copper of the wash-boiler. A quick return visit to the basement produced a washer to put on the rope where the knot would pull it up against the copper, spreading the tension. This worked better, but it was still very limited in volume and in the range of notes it would make.
Later I found an old #3 tub (18 gallons). It was pretty rusty but it was free. I made a longer stick from a pine board. I cut a notch in the lower end to fit on the raised rim of the tub. At the top of the stick I drilled a hole bigger than the string, so I could shove a short (8") piece of 3/8" wooden dowel through there too. I tied the string around the dowel where it stuck out the back of the stick. I switched from clothesline to venetian blind cord (1/8" cotton). I again used a washer where the knot bore against the underside of the tub.
Immediately upon testing two things were obvious: this one worked much better, and the tub's handles vibrated loudly. I removed the handles. Now I had an instrument that was loud enough and had a range of about an octave. My friends and I began to play at other peoples' houses and at neighborhood functions. This would have been some time in 1956.
Every few tunes the sharp edge of the hole where the string went through the tub would cut the string. It would break loudly and I'd have but little time to get down, flip the tub up on its side, find the washer, re-thread the string through tub and washer, tie a new knot, pull the dowel out from the top of the stick, let out enough string to compensate for the lost end, shove the dowel back in, retie the upper knot, set everything upright again and get playing. After awhile I got quite good at this and could do it during the verse of a song and play out the chorus. After a few weeks of these unpredictable breakdowns I made a collar for the string with masking tape. Things went better for our group and we began to play nightly at a coffee house in Boston.
I played the old tub until the rusty metal ripped out, forcing me to pungle up $3.27 for a new one from Sears Roebuck and Co. who, at the time, carried the Lisk brand. This new one was slightly wider but shallower than the old one and sounded very bright and crisp. I used it until I joined the army in 1958.
In the army I became an aviation mechanic and noticed all the lovely stainless steel cable used in helicopters to operate the controls. I got a piece of it one day and hooked up a tub. Stainless steel cable doesn't like to have knots tied in it, but it was vastly louder than cotton string when struck the same stroke. It also gave a purer tone with a much longer sustain. These were three very important characteristics: loudness, purity and sustain. I would be able to work on them as soon as I got out of the army.
Arriving back in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1962 I immediately built a tub to utilize the stainless steel cable for a string. It was a good choice. Over the years since then I have met several other tub players, none of whom used stainless steel cable, and I'm sure they would agree mine sounds the best.
There is, however, one problem with the stainless steel cable which must be overcome. This is its ability to saw through skin. I make the different notes as I play by sliding my left hand down the stick/string to shorten it for higher notes or back up again for lower notes, while maintaining a fairly constant tension. With a cotton string this can be done with the bare hand or a cloth, but with stainless more exotic materials must be used.
I use the ring finger of my left hand as a fret - the string passes over and presses on it. I pull the string against the ring finger with the first two, gripping, releasing, sliding constantly during a tune. To protect my fingers I developed what has been called the "fret glove".
I took an old work glove and taped a metal bit on the back of the ring finger. This helped, so I did the same thing to the inside of the first two fingers. Now, sliding the glove up and down the stick/string made a spurious abrasive noise which no amount of lube would quiet. I knew I needed metals more compatible with the stainless steel. After some experimentation, for the ring finger I settled on a US nickel coin, bent, slightly grooved to take the string and drilled on the edges so I could stitch it to the glove. For the first two fingers I took a piece of electrical conduit, slit it, spread it, flattened it, contoured it to fit the glove and taped a piece of Teflon to it. The string ran in the slot it would quickly cut in the Teflon. This was kind of a nuisance as I had to tape on a new piece of Teflon every couple of months and the tape didn't want to stick to it, of course, being Teflon. The adhesive from the tape would ooze all over the glove and the stick requiring frequent replacement.
I have since redesigned the glove and eliminated all tape and Teflon by making a new metal plate from a heat-treatable steel alloy which I formed, drilled and polished before heat treating. I stitched it to the glove and now the whole glove is smooth, silent and simple.
WASH TUB BASS II
By Fritz Richmond January 1989
Now, about this particular washtub bass in the Smithsonian Collection; this is the one I made in 1962 when I got out of the army. Of all the parts only the stick is original, everything else wears out from time to time and must be replaced, especially the tubs. But let me tell you about the stick first.
In the same basement where years before we had found the washboiler, was most of a disassembled wooden bed with thick maple side rails. From one of these I sliced a piece, trimming it down until it felt right. I cut it to a length that I could just see over the top of when set in playing position on the rim of the tub.
Into the bottom of the stick where it engages the rim of the tub I let a piece of 3/8" pipe, split so it would go over the rim. This keeps the tubs from chewing up the end of the stick, and the pipe is small enough that it keeps the stick from touching the vibrating surface of the tub. A nail holds the pipe in place and a round head screw up into the very bottom of the stick keeps it from getting scuffed when rested on a floor.
At the top of the stick where the string goes through, I let in another piece of 3/8" pipe, curved just a bit to lead the string gently over and down toward the tub. Stainless steel cable doesn't like sharp corners. Where the string comes through the pipe out of the back of the stick, I let in a washer. To grip the upper end of the string I needed a device which would provide adjustment, yet never slip. I settled on a bolt (1x4x28x3"), the kind of bolt with a hole for a cotter pin. I put a nut above and a nut below the hole, slid the end of the string through, adjusted the length and wrenched those nuts up tight. The nuts pull up against the washer in the back of the stick; I taped the bolt to the stick.
I never had a carrying case for the stick. I always just carried it held against the tub with the other stick I'll tell about presently, in between. As a consequence, it had to be refinished a couple of times. It now sports a very jazzy paint job by a Cambridge buddy of mine, noted artist Robert J. Neuwirth.
The string, as I have said, is 1/16" stainless steel cable. It is made from 7 groups of 7 strands called 7 by 7. If you are going to make a washtub bass be sure to get 7x7, there is another type made of 7 groups of 19 strands which I found impossible to work with. I cut pieces 60" long using a cold chisel and a hammer. I tape the spot to be cut and cut through the tape to prevent fraying. On one end I fray the strands slightly then braze or solder on a blob about 3/16" diameter. Brazing is best but 95/5 solder will do. This is the end that goes through the top of the tub (some people think it's the bottom, but it's really the top.) A large washer distributes the tension evenly and helps prevent cracking. Linking the string to the tub is a tiny block of steel 1/2" X 1/2" X 1/4" with a tapered hole through it and a slot cut to one edge. It slips over the blob on the end of the string, the tension of playing sets it firmly into the tapered hole, yet it can be easily snapped loose with a coin or a key to unhook everything for air travel or to change tubs.
The Lisk Company of Canandaigua, New York, made the first tubs I used. Although they didn't last long, they had great tone. They were slightly wider and shallower than any #3 tub I have found since. While I was in the Kweskin Jug Band and playing so much, I would need to get a new one every month or so. The tops would develop hairline cracks usually near the center. I have always assumed the cracks were caused by metal fatigue from the vibration.
The Lisk factory closed in 1969 or so, as did the Kweskin Band and now I use tubs by Chief Metalware of Kent, Washington, which is the one here in the Smithsonian is. This particular tub has played in Symphony Hall in Boston, Carnegie Hall in New York, and the night before it became part of the Smithsonian Collection I played it at The Kennedy Center here in Washington, DC.
Stretched around the tub is a bicycle inner tube (24") which keeps the sides of the tub from ringing and interfering with the intonation. Mounted inside are two red discs with wires connecting them to a guitar jack. This is a Drechsler pickup made from NASA vibration sensors by Jonathan Drechsler, a Portland, Oregon bass player.
The fret glove started as an ordinary all-leather work glove. I have cut away some parts that aren't needed. A US nickel coin is stitched to the back of the ring finger and a heat-treated steel plate is similarly fastened to the underside of the first 2 fingers. I had the back decorated with beadwork by Corona Hats, a local artist and washtub bass player around Portland, Oregon.
And finally that other stick I mentioned, the shorter one. In some rooms the acoustics are such that by slipping the shorter stick under the bottom edge of the tub, the sound quality is improved. I seldom use it, but it was a great souvenir. That stick was, in a way part of the old Club 47 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When I first started playing there in 1962 there was only a single toilet in the basement, with no door or walls around it. After awhile they put in another toilet and walls. Finally they even got doors, but the mens' room door was too tall for its jamb so they cut off a piece. It was just what I needed to go under my tub.
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