At this stage of the construction there was still time to draw some conclusions for the construction of the final instrument. The main question was how much a stronger bass bar, possibly needed to accommodate for the additional pressure of the E-string, would change the sound qualities of the instrument.
Ueda increased the height of the new bass bar about 5%. The thickness remained the same (11mm).
Picture 80 shows the measurements of the bass bar. Numbers above are the old measurements; numbers below are the new measures. The F-hole was drawn to show the positioning.
Picture 80: Measurements of the bass bar. (Sketch: Ueda.)
The installing of the new bass bar at first resulted in a rather big loss of volume on the lower strings. After a few days most of the original quality returned but the experience brought up some doubt whether the merits of a stronger bass bar are big enough to justify a possible loss of sound.
Another change was a further lengthening of the E-string’s distance between bridge and tailpiece. This resulted in quite a significant improvement of the string’s sound quality.
