Adjust what to which?

[Dugz Ink]

My first guitar body is starting to take shape, and I'm ready to cut out the neck pocket for the "Fender style" neck that I bought. (I'll learn how to build necks after I learn how to build the rest.)

The pickups and bridge are also on the way; humbuckers and a tune-o-matic.

So, should I set up the neck based on my bridge/pickup height, the other way around?

D~s

[Setch]

You need to draw everything out fullsize, from the side. Your bridge height will determine the angle or elevation of your neck. I strongly recommend you wait until you've recieved your bridge before you undertake any work on the neck pocket. With a tunamatic style bridge you'll need more angle than a fender style hardtail, exactly how much will depend on how high your fretboard is above the body.

The pickups are entirely inccidental to the neck angle - you make them fit it, since they are more or less infinitely adjustable, either by raising/lowering them in the rings, or adjusting the height of the rings themselves.

[Dugz Ink]

That leads to another question: The tune-o-matic on my Epi holds the strings about 7/8" above the face of the guitar at the bridge. This means that the bridge pickup sits way up in the air. If I want both pickups to sit closer to flush, can't I adjust the tune-o-matic so it sits closer to the body?

Or is there a different bridge that rides closer and is simple to set up? (I want a bridge and stop that are clean and simple. I just picked the tune-o-matic because I have one on my old guitar; I can use that as a reference while build this new guitar.)

D~s

[Southpa]

If I want both pickups to sit closer to flush, can't I adjust the tune-o-matic so it sits closer to the body?

It all depends on what kind of action you will wind up with on the fretboard. The old recessed TOM/neckangle/raised fretboard question arises again. You'll have to figure out where the best of all those factors lie. Your primary objective is making the guitar playable without having to set the adjustable components to their extremes. If I find I can only get good action when my TOM is bottomed out then I'd prefer to figure a way to reset things so the TOM is near the middle of its adjustment range. That will require altering neck angle/height (if its a bolt on) and/or recessing the bridge into the body. Afterwards, like Setch mentioned, your pickup height(s) adjust to the setup.

In my experience the common neck angle for your standard TOM is roughly 3 degrees. That is a MUST if you are building a set neck or neckthru guitar because you don't have the adjustment option in that area. The other option, if its your thing, is to raise the fretboard resulting in a violin style guitar with strings way off the body.

Edited October 5, 2004 by Southpa

[crafty]

The cleanest and simplest bridge is probably just a regular Fender-style hard-tail bridge. Best thing about it's the fact that it is much lower profile than a TOM bridge and doesn't require any neck angle with only the fretboard itself higher than the body.

However, it won't really work well on a carved-top body, so if you've done that, ce la vie. But if you're building a flat-top, it's the simplest and cleanest way to go.

[Dugz Ink]

Thank you! You're describibg the type of alignment that I want.

I'll start reading up on the other style!

D~s