Gap Around Neck/neck Pocket, Do I Have To Worry?

[albertop]

Hello all, I´m building my first bolt-on, a Tele thinline type (but without been hollow ). It´s gonna have a mahogany body and a rosewood/maple neck. So I was fitting and aligning the neck, and everything seems fine except that when I made the holes and put the screws a little gap appeared. Is about 1mm (2/64" aprox) and then it decreased. It´s about 1/2" long.

http://espanol.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/albe...3&.dnm=94d6.jpg

Also around the last fret area, where the neck meets the body, it has a 1/2 mm (1/64") gap.

http://espanol.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/albe...3&.dnm=6beb.jpg

So my question is: do I start to worry or maybe the painting will take care of the gap. It was a tight fit but seems when I drill the holes the neck move up a little bit. I checked with the bridge and everything´s allright, the measures between strings is perfect. Any advice? thanks

Alberto

[american_jesus]

you should be ok. maybe shim it? but it's quite a thin gap, so you should be alright.

[frank falbo]

I say leave it. The paint will help, and you may find with a tight fit that you have to sand away some of the paint from the neck pocket anyway. The pickguard covers most of it too! For a first bolt-on, you did a fantastic job. A tight, picture perfect neck pocket is one of the hardest things to get right the "first time" and yours is as good or better than most "factory" teles.

*EDIT*

My first bolt-on (waaay back in the day) was Mahogany and it was about like that. But I didn't have a pickguard and I was giving it an oil finish, so there was no chance of it filling in. So I made an extremely thin wedge shaped mahogany "sliver". I coated the body side with wood glue and coated the neck with wax. Then I jammed the shim in there, and hammered it a few times for good measure. You'd never be able to tell with the neck on, and it's a picture perfect joint because the wood compressed against the neck. Mahogany's grains lend themselves to repairs like that. Most other woods would telegraph that repair.

Edited October 14, 2004 by frank falbo

[albertop]

Thanks both of you guys, I´ll try to shim it like you said in your post Frank, and if that won´t work I´ll leave it that way. It just bothers me a little bit, the neck has a great fit, Thanks again

Alberto