A luthier who makes my instructor's basses came by a few days ago. I had him fix my bass. The bridge has height adjustment wheels that couldn't be turned. My strings were in dire need of being raised but I had no way to do it and it was driving me crazy. He loosed the strings and removed the bridge (which is only held on by string tension). He disassembled it, retapped it with a 1/4-20 and lubed up the threaded ends with bar soap. He reassembled it and then checked inside the bass and said my soundpost was way off.

He used a special tool I'd seen online but didn't know how it was used. I do now for at least some purposes. He used to pull the soundpost towards him and get it close to where he said it neeeded to be. Then he put the bridge back in place and I tighted the strings and then tuned them up and started playing. WOW, what a difference!!! Sounds like a whole new instrument and much easier to play.

The whole operation took 20 minutes. I paid the guy $40 although he did not ask for money. It's worth it. How long would I have to leave it in a shop to get the same thing done? How much would it have cost? Would have been as good a job? Probably would have taken a good 2 weeks and cost at least $100.