Strat Neck Shim Or Angled Neck Pocket?

[mbaker]

I am building a strat style guitar with a top mount Floyd Rose (no bridge routering). To the best of my knowledge I can not get acceptable action with out either raising the neck with a shim or angling the neck (with an angled shim or adding and angle to the neck pocket).

I would rather add a flat shim to the neck pocket as this seems to be the easiest and quickest but I am concerned about a loss of sustain and poor appearance?

Angling the neck pocket or creating an angled shim seems to be very difficult to do and I can not think of an accurate way to accomplish this?

So my question, is what is the best way and how?

[Gemleggat]

If you are making it then dont cut the neck pocket as deep as the plans says. Undercut it by a 1/16 and it should be fine. If you are using a pre made body and neck then it might not need shimed at all, but i have just used a little piece of veener at the back of the pocket to acheive a little angle on the neck.

[frank falbo]

You always have the option of angling the bottom of the neck heel, like on a belt sander for example. But then that neck is permanently angled. There're a lot of thread here if you do a search on neck angle. You can check out the many ways people have done them and then decide if it's too much for you to handle. You could also start with a shim, and later as your skills develop, go back and cut an angle into the pocket and toss your shim in the trash where it belongs.

[thedoctor]

Have you put this thing together and tried it yet? Your answer lies in the first assemble of this axe. If it has never been assembled and tried, you cannot make a good decision. Shims and neck-pocket mods do two completely different things. They are not interchangable solutions to a given problem. Put it together, if you haven't already, setup and let us know what your action complaints are. At that point, your answer can be complete, concise and well-informed. Yeah, RIGHT!! Who's gonna provide that one???