chromium

I've always dialed in some relief on my bass necks to achieve a forward bow yielding roughly the thickness of a dime in the middle register when fretting the string at the body-end of the fingerboard. Flatter than that, and I tend to get too much fret buzz when digging in... Subjective, but that works well for my playing. The old washer trick sometimes helps the Fender-ish necks in cases where the rod is maxed out - i.e. spin off the truss rod nut, add a washer (or two, depending...), re-tension...

Jeff - thanks for the tip. I've got a new birdseye neck coming for another build, and will give this a try...

Oh.. and James Knopp at theguitardog.com has done some coursed string builds w/custom Hamer-esque bridges, and might have leads...

Short of landing a Hamer bridge out of someone's stash here, and failing the reference above... another lead might be Carlo at cataldobasses.com. Good guy, does a lot of coursed string builds, and he may be able to offer some tips on sourcing. Rob Van Den Broek at enkoo.nl may also have some leads. One of his Explorer-shaped 12 string builds used bridge akin to the Hamers. As a last resort, you could possibly snag one of those Carlo Robelli 8 string double-cut basses on the cheap and pilfer the bridge/tailpiece assembly.

Thank you for the photos, Punkavenger. The specific tuners I'm seeking are more like the following pics (either type, but first choice would be the octagons). Of course, I may fall back to other options if these prove to be unobtainum. Have a few months to hunt...

A magnificent Arizona tan!

I have not attempted that yet with a nitro finish, but I did do that with a tru-oil finish on an old Musikraft neck - probably an aggregate total of ten hours in indirect sunlight in the winter months (~70 deg). Not sure I'd attempt this in our Phoenix summer months, though! Original color was very similar to the bottom neck.

Also, if you don't already have a can of the amber tinted clear it might be cheaper/easier to cut losses and just grab a can of Gracey's seafoam green for the headstock. Warmoth's color does strike me as more of a seafoam hue (despite what they call it), and the Gracey's nitro you used on the head definitely seems more true to surf green. As an aside, I'd be curious what you think of Gracy's products. I've only used reranch in the past, but was considering Gracey's heather poly for a project...

That's what I would try. Spray a test swatch first and determine how many coats it takes to get closer to the body hue. Shouldn't take much...

Narrowly missed one of these in the low 1k range years ago. My '79 Mock bass is a keeper. One day, a classic BCR guitar will be mine I tell you... All mine!!!

I would be all over this if I didn't already have a '94. Incredible guitar for the money. Mine's also setup with minihums (Lollars) and it smokes! GLWTS

On the prowl for a set of 6-inline Gotoh Octagon or Chevron tuners in chrome for an upcoming build. Prefer drop tabs and crown keys, but would be open to other configs... Also putting the feelers out for a chrome OFR Floyd (German FRT100 or the like), an R3 nut, and a chrome D-Tuna. Thanks!

That ice pearl(?) Cruise in the pic is among us... Belongs to my friend here in Phoenix. Great bass!

Waited it out a bit, and he got a nice deal on that one... Happy 17 year old. Thanks again!