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Tolerances And Finishing


mbe

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Greetings All! I'm getting to the end of my first guitar and I'm about to start the finishing of the body and what not. Today I realized that the tolerances that I routed the neck pocket to may be thrown off by the application of the Lacquer/Shellac finish I'm thinking about applying. Am I just over thinking this or should on my next next guitar try to take this into account? Thanks for the help.

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You don't say whether it's a set neck or a bolt on-- if it's a set neck, you definitely don't want any finish in there (some people glue their necks in after the finish is done).

For a bolt on, I have a handle that fits into the neck pocket --I use it for hanging the guitar up--it pretty much fills the pocket, so there's not much worry about finish getting in there, but I still line the pocket with masking tape anyway, I only leave the top edge exposed so that part will be finished. The front and side edges too.

A lot depends on how much finish you're planning on putting on, but I see no reason to have anything come between the neck and the body. And yeah, a little bit of finish goes a long way to screwing up all your careful planning :D

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Oh so true Mick...The first guitar I refinished was about 20 years ago. My father painted cars so I had him shoot it a cool corvette purple with a pearl. Still have that axe to this day. Anyway, I slapped it together and proceeded to set it up. What a nightmare. Could not set the intonation no matter what I tried. I got it close and it would not tune right. Pulled the neck off, stripped the paint from the pocket and the contact surface of the neck and to this day it is such a sweet playing instrument!. My advice...keep the pcket and contact surface clean as you can. Peace...Rog

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Oh so true Mick...The first guitar I refinished was about 20 years ago. My father painted cars so I had him shoot it a cool corvette purple with a pearl. Still have that axe to this day. Anyway, I slapped it together and proceeded to set it up. What a nightmare. Could not set the intonation no matter what I tried. I got it close and it would not tune right. Pulled the neck off, stripped the paint from the pocket and the contact surface of the neck and to this day it is such a sweet playing instrument!. My advice...keep the pcket and contact surface clean as you can. Peace...Rog

Thanks guys. That's what I figured, but I just wanted to make sure the pros don't do some fancy calculations.

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