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About To Make The First Cut. I'm Afraid....


Wonko

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OK, I've got my neck (fretless maple bass, fender tele style, NICE!), and I've got my body (Ibanez Roadgear 200 something), and they fit nicely, except that I've got to shave 1/4" off the heel of the neck so that it doesn't place the playing surface (and the strings) 1/4" too high with respect to the bridge and pickups.

I need to shave 1/4" and still have the new flat which joins the body be exactly parallel to the flat that's on there now. But how?

One suggestion is to mark the final line carefully, turn her on her side, cut near the mark with a bandsaw, and then sand it down to the marks by hand. Carefully.

Another is the same, except use a tablesaw.

Any better ideas out there? The amount of wood which must be removed is sizable. This 1/4" removal covers a an area of about 2 1/4" wide by 8" long. the rest of the neck is completed, so I can't figure out how to run it through a planer. The truss rod is not in the way.

Fortunately there is a backup plan. If I screw this up totally, I can still pull the frets from the Ibanez neck and bolt it on, but that wouldn't look nearly as beautiful as the current absolutely stunning contrast provided by the blond maple vs. that Ibanez blue.

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Being scared with doing a mod or real invasive work is sometimes a good sign. Figuring out how to be 100% confident in what you are doing, why you are doing it and near enough guaranteeing that it will work is all part of the game :-D

Personally I wouldn't mill into the neck pocket unless you have plenty of depth of wood under the pocket (1/4" can be a lot of removal!) I'd go for the neck seating face option. I would personally try planing it to remove a little wood at a time, although planing through to 1/4" of adjustment is a lot, and easy to go off the parallel.

Perhaps removing 1/8" in the pocket and planing 1/8" off the neck seating face?

See what other people recommend first Wonko before putting hammer to wood - there are plenty of people who can suggest alternative courses of action which may surprise you :-D

Edited by Maiden69
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