Wireboy

Thank you very much for your input! I think it makes sense for me to be leaning toward the tune-o-matic bridge/stop tail that I had original planned for. I gather that the correct way to do this would be to complete my finishing activities and then install the bridge and tuners, bolt the neck on and see how the action is looking? Once that is done I have the option of shimming to adjust the action and then, possibly, follow that up with neck or pocket adjustments to make the angle permanent? Maybe I can get some local help if necessary once I know more or less what I need based on the angle the shim is giving me. Are there any options/products I should look into re. string trees? I have always been a Gibson guy with my purchased guitars so I know nothing about them. I am just hoping that the weirdly non-angled headstock, which I completely overlooked and will not do again on future builds, doesn't drive me crazy! Again, thank you so much for all the input!

Curtisa - The neck is still not attached, I am just planing ahead. It is a bolt on 25.5" scale neck with no angle on the head stock. The headstock angle issue is indeed unrelated to the bridge question other than that I am having to make decisions based on my specific neck purchase, which may have been a bit hasty it seems. Is a string tree the way to go? Is it always necessary on a neck with no headstock angle? As my first custom guitar I am piecing together a few things and do not have anything in the way of woodworking skills yet. The neck seems to fit the pocket on the body so nicely I was hoping I could get away without shims to change the angle. Toward that end I was hoping I could find a low bridge that would work without an angled neck and still use the pre-drilled stop tail post holes. Perhaps this is asking too much! I am using a very transparent Wudtone finish so filled post holes would be extremely visible. And again my lack of woodworking chops kind of rules out the veneer on this one. And now that I think of it, the body does have the original RD carved bout so it wouldn't work anyway. Thanks!

The idea there would be to use the existing stop tail mounting holes, determine the bridge location and then rout out a space to drop the bridge lower into the body so as to allow the action to work? I am having trouble visualizing that. Would it look good?

Hi all! I am new here, just getting started on my first custom electric guitar and thought I'd ask for a quick bit of advice as I am concerned that I have made some mistakes already. I am building a guitar from parts that I am getting from a variety of places; a Gibson RD shaped body and a 25.5" scale neck so far. I am basing things on the RD of my youth that I sold for some stupid reason that I can no longer remember. The first issue I am wrestling with is neck angle. The neck that I purchased has none whatsoever as that was all I could find at the time with the longer 25.5 scale of the original RDs, which I think may have been a mistake since the body has pre-drilled holes for a stop tail bridge. Assuming the pre-drilled stoptail holes mean I am locked into a tune o magic bridge, does this mean I am going to have to angle the neck, which sits os so nicely right now, so as to get acceptable action? What about string trees for pressure against the nut? Can anyone recommend a low profile bridge that I can use with a standard Gibson style stop tailpiece which would be low enough to allow me to have acceptable action without angling the neck? If so, is there anything I can do to get the non-angled headstock working? String tree perhaps? Would I be better off scrapping this neck, writing off the $125 as lesson learned and getting something angled? Please excuse any obviously stupid questions! Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!