Well, it turns out, I am not one of them. I had so many things go wrong while working on this cello it will make you cringe. It makes me cringe. So I will tell my tale of woe. Just know that it's not all bad. I did end up putting my cello back together.
So here was the plan. I wanted to upgrade my tailpiece and change my wooden peg tuners to metal gear tuners. Step one was purchasing a harp style tailpiece, gold fine tuners, and a tailpiece cord. All of it looked great out of the box. That is, until I tried to put them together. The tailpiece had a decorative ridge on it that the fine tuners couldn't fit around. So I ended up sanding down the tailpiece with a sander. In a bit of stupid luck, it ended up working out great.
While violin family basses (officially called a double bass) come standard with metal tuners, cellos do not. It was all but impossible to find metal cello tuners made in the same style as basses. There are other metal tuners that are disguised as wooden tuners, but that's not what I was after. I wanted the metal looking ones.
It seemed that in all the world there was just one seller that sold them. I was able to find him on E-Bay. I bought a set, and if you look below, you can see the problem with them.
They don't come anywhere near fitting the peghole spacing. So I e-mailed the seller about returning them. He made me an offer for a discounted set of tuners that were four individual tuners instead of one solid piece per side. So I went ahead and ordered them.
However, things took a turn for the weird as I was called away during the summer. So I didn't have the chance to work on the cello for almost four months. When I got back I decided the next thing to do was install the four individual tuners. This is where I had numerous problems.
I had to ream out the pegholes to fit the tuners, only to find out the tuners were not made at an angle. If you look at the scroll of the cello headstock you'll notice it narrows down. The tuners were made at a 90 degree angle.
So I ended up filling in the pegholes so as to re-drill them.
Do you notice a problem? If you do I wish I had you beside me when I screwed up. I filled the wrong holes. The tuners are staggered the other way. I put the cello away for the day so I could calm down. The next day I ended up filling up all the holes.
After I had let the glue dry for 48 hours I ended up re-drilling all of the pegholes so that the tuners would sit at a correct angle. I then dry fitted all of them.
The screws they sent me were completely abysmal. I tried one, and said, "Nope." I immediately went to Ace Hardware and bought two sets of screws. Both were the same size, but one was brass colored and the other standard steel metal color. Luckily the brass colored ones were strong, and I had no problems with them.
Before I installed the tuners I took a wood dye pen, and colored the reamed wood. That way, it was all the same color. Everything looked as good as it was going to get, so I carefully installed the tuning pegs.
It looked alright, but the job was still far from finished. During all this work my soundpost ended up getting knocked down. I said "To heck with it," and had Luthier John Importuno install it correctly. He was really cool about the entire thing. But even he admitted, "He hated those metal tuners." I understand. Every musician has their own style with likes and dislikes.
So now that the soundpost was back up it was time to tune up the cello. I brought it home, and started tuning it up. This should be the end, right? Nope. The brand new tailpiece cord that goes around the endpin snapped. My tailpiece, strings, and bridge all came crumbling down. I ordered a newer, stronger cord. Mercifully, the seller shipped it quickly.
So I put it all back together again. I had a problem with the "D" string tuner. It would turn forward, but wouldn't turn backwards when I was trying to tune. There was one spot in the gear that was a little rough. I eventually got it to catch, and then I was able to retune.
So finally! Finally I was able to get my cello back together after it being in pieces for almost seven months.
So how did it sound? Well, like I needed new strings on it. I looked at the strings when I was putting it back together and saw how worn they were. Then it occurred to me just how old they were. Do you know what a good set of cello strings cost? The ones I like are $140. Yeah. Not kidding. So I'll hold off on buying those for a while.
But overall, the cello sounded pretty good. I was able to play it for about 20 minutes. I'm still an okay player. Not great, but I can have a bit of fun with it. I broke my right hand last year, and it makes it difficult for me to hold my bow. I can only play for a few minutes straight before I have to take a break.
If had to do it all over again, I would go back in time, and try to warn myself. You know, like in Sci-Fi movies. I'd tell myself, "It just ain't worth it." Even if my cello looks somewhat steampunk now. Of course, if I wanted it to have a steampunk look, I'd just play it with goggles on. But I digress.
Just remember this kids, if you have an idea of upgrading your orchestral instrument, talk it over with a professional luthier first. They have contacts with dealers/suppliers that you are not aware of. They can determine a better long term plan for your instrument. But just remember the first thing I tell all players, "Have fun with it." And I should have heeded my own advice.
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