NBD Kramer Ali neck

[Bunion]

This popped up in a thread on the fleabay a few days ago.

I put it on watch and deliberated while doing some research. 

It’s a 70’s model 450B fretless.

Going through many old forums it looked to have its original Schaller tuners

original engraved picks ups (mighty mites?)

and seemed in relatively good nick throughout the finish, knobs, switches and covers.

there’s some marks but it is 40+ years old.

I took a punt when no other bids dropped and lo and behold it arrived a few days later in a decent box 

I had a quick noodle and it sounds great, the pickup heights were all over the place but are sorted now and the action seemed a little high but I stripped the neck and there it was, the shim from thick tape plus it seems someone used blobs of something that set to lift the neck. 
I’ve removed it and the action is fine and it’s playing lovely. 

I’ll strip it properly the weekend and give it s good clean and service but my punt paid off and apart from having to replace the wooden pickup surrounds (we have a 3d printing shop at work) 

I’m well chuffed

[Happy Jack]

Nice score, especially as you have the skill (& facilities) to sort it out.

 

[Hellzero]

I can confirm that these are the original Schaller tuners.

 

These pickups were made by Gary Kramer himself.

 

Excellent basses with a tone on their own.

 

And loads of information here: http://www.vintagekramer.com/index.htm

[BreadBin]

Lovely 

[TheGreek]

Nice to see it was bought by someone here.

[Twincam]

Very cool. 

Decently packaged too. 

Never played or even held a kramer, but having a go of one is on the must try basses list.

 

[MOSCOWBASS]

I got to play the fretted version in 1978, it belonged to a friend. Here it is playing through a Sunn Concert bass amp and Cerwin Vega B36MF.

 

 

No foh and recorded in a radio cassette at the back of the hall. It was a very nice bass at the time, compared to my P bass. 

[Burns-bass]

40 minutes ago, MOSCOWBASS said:

I got to play the fretted version in 1978, it belonged to a friend. Here it is playing through a Sunn Concert bass amp and Cerwin Vega B36MF.

 

No foh and recorded in a radio cassette at the back of the hall. It was a very nice bass at the time, compared to my P bass. 

Hell of a drummer on that track!

[MOSCOWBASS]

1 hour ago, Burns-bass said:

Hell of a drummer on that track!

He went on to produce Deacon Blue and opened a successful recording studio in New Zealand.

Edited April 17, 2023 by MOSCOWBASS

[Bunion]

10 hours ago, MOSCOWBASS said:

I got to play the fretted version in 1978, it belonged to a friend. Here it is playing through a Sunn Concert bass amp and Cerwin Vega B36MF.

 

No foh and recorded in a radio cassette at the back of the hall. It was a very nice bass at the time, compared to my P bass. 

They do sound unique 

[lidl e]

That's my first bass!

[Bunion]

8 hours ago, lidl e said:

That's my first bass!

Where’s my pickup surrounds! 😂🤣

[BigRedX]

1 hour ago, Bunion said:

Where’s my pickup surrounds! 😂🤣

 

Probably broken off a long time ago.

 

More seriously, I bought one of these about 15 years ago with the pickup surrounds still attached but only just. The problem is that they are made out of very thin pieces of wood and the two holes for the fixing screws removed over half the width of wood! Unsurprisingly over the years they would snap around these holes and then the surround would fall off. They looked great (and IMO the bass looks wrong without them), but they are completely impractical in terms of durability.

 

Out of interest what are you intending to make the replacements out of?

[Hellzero]

You are wrong concerning the fragility of these surroundings @BigRedX. 😉

 

If they are broken (and gone), it's because most of the people were thinking these were the height setting screws for the pickups (which are at the back of the body) and while forcing them, they broke these surroundings...

[BigRedX]

50 minutes ago, Hellzero said:

You are wrong concerning the fragility of these surroundings @BigRedX. 😉

 

If they are broken (and gone), it's because most of the people were thinking these were the height setting screws for the pickups (which are at the back of the body) and while forcing them, they broke these surroundings...

 

You know, I'd never considered that anyone might mistake these screws for pickup height adjustment, but you could well be right.

 

On my Kramer the wood of the surrounds had split once on each surround. Of course whatever the reason for the split occurring it wasn't helped by the fact that the wood for the surrounds is very thin and at the point where the splits happen there is more hole than wood. Here's a photo of mine where you can quite clearly see the wood has split on the neck pickup surround (its on the other one too but not as obvious):

 

 

[Hellzero]

I had a few Kramer basses with these broken surroundings too.

 

I think only one had intact surroundings...

 

You can make an experiment with wasted wood and you'll see that it will break exactly there when forcing the screw. 😉

[Shaggy]

On 18/04/2023 at 14:32, BigRedX said:

 

You know, I'd never considered that anyone might mistake these screws for pickup height adjustment, but you could well be right.

 

On my Kramer the wood of the surrounds had split once on each surround. Of course whatever the reason for the split occurring it wasn't helped by the fact that the wood for the surrounds is very thin and at the point where the splits happen there is more hole than wood. Here's a photo of mine where you can quite clearly see the wood has split on the neck pickup surround (its on the other one too but not as obvious):

 

 

 

Fabulous grain on that, BigRedX!    They were indeed known for the fragility of the pickup surrounds; my 650B has them intact, but on my 450B fretless they’re bust.

Big shame these weren’t more popular, which as ever largely comes down to what prominent bassists were playing / endorsing at the time.  As I recall Nick Lowe favoured a 450B, who was no slouch on bass.