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Best way to alter neck height to body face on bolt-on?


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I have an old Ibanez where I have redone the finish on it resulting in the neck sitting a little higher on the body than it used to.  It doesn't affect the way the guitar plays, but I do not like the way the tremolo is now having to sit proud of the body and would like to set the neck a little deeper into the neck pocket so I can sink the tremolo block back into the rout. 

My first thought was to remove some wood from the neck pocket, but what is the best way to determine how far I should look to take it?  Would I measure how far down I need to take the tremolo, then apply that measurement to the neck pocket for removal?  I don't want too take too much, but also don't want to take too many small adjustments. 

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Sounds like you got it. If you lower the neck the bridge will need to drop a equal amount.

I did this once years ago I took a piece of scrap clamped it to the body then used a laminate trim bit in my router to make a template.  Then I swapped the bit to the type with the bearing at the top set my depth and routed the pocket it worked out nice.

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You can take it from either the neck or the body depending on which has more material to "give" and which one is already too light. if the heel on the neck is deep, it can be planed by hand or trimmed on the belt sander. The neck pocket sounds like a better bet however.

Do you have photos?

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  • 5 months later...

Looks like you have plenty of room to remove material from the neck. The pocket might be a more elegant option depending on whether it is already flat and you have a bearing-guided bit short enough to reference off the perimeter whilst dialling off a mm or two from the bottom.

Can you remove the neck and show the pocket and the underside of the neck where they mate?

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Here are the pictures.. 

Tremolo to body distance focus on knife edge.jpg

My camera did not want to utilize it's flash, so this is dark and I had to edt it in Paint.  Area of concern is in yellow rectangle.  The arrow pointing to the right is the forward edge of the knife point pivot.  The arrow pointing left is the face of the body where the tremolo route begins.  The knife edge should be able to sit into the tremolo route so that the bottom edge of the knife edge (in the pic it is the rectangle just above the arrow pointing left)is flush with the top edge of the body when looking at the guitar from the same direction as this picture is taken.  From the previous pic the neck is sitting too far from the body face

 

Neck rear.JPG

Rear of neck where it meets the body.  The neck pocket has always been slightly loose, even when it had the Ibanez Death Coat Poly on it, That is the reason you see the indentation of the lock washer.  I use that to keep the neck from shifting.  The horizontal line is wax build up from maintenance.

Nek Pocket.JPG

Top down neck pocket.  Top left corner of it as well as the lower right are factory slop jobs. 

Neck Pocket side View.JPG

Trying to show that the pocket is the same thickness from front to rear from the side.

Neck Pocket front to rear.JPG

I think it is safe to remove some wood from the pocket. The heel is 1-1/8" thick off a standard metal ruler.

IMG_0901.JPG

I guess I will create a jig to compensate for the lack of wood on the lower edge of the pocket.  I am not sure how far out a fret board should be from the face of the guitar body.  I will just take a few measurements off my other guitars, and get an average between the two or three I tend to play most.  I am not trying to create a zero need for shims and they will be used if needed to create a proper angle, but this guitar always makes me feel like I am fighting the guitar by having to lift my picking hand away from the body to play..

FWIW the final picture was taken when finished with applying oil finish prior to waxing. I used Mixol tint Oxide Green to tint the linseed oil I used on the body.  This picture makes the body look too pretty it actually looks like I picked it up out of a stagnant pond which was the effect I was going for.

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Facing off the heel on the neck is not an option since the truss rod slug is exposed. As far as slop in the joint is concerned, you could retrofit some threaded inserts and replace the wood screws with machine bolts. Depends on whether the heel has enough meat to accept them and that you can add the inserts without cracking the neck.

Does the neck pocket have any sort of angle in there already? Some trems tend to dial in very slight angles which makes a big difference. I guess that a zero-angle pocket can be dialled in anyway. It's just got to be done perfect first time otherwise it might head completely the other way. Shimming might work to "prove" the joint working a certain way.

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In the first pic it appears that the action is OK,  and that your only complaint is that the strings sit too high off the body.  If that is the case you will want to drop the term also,  that or add neck angle but that won't get the strings much closer to the body where it counts.  

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16 hours ago, Tim37 said:

In the first pic it appears that the action is OK,  and that your only complaint is that the strings sit too high off the body.  If that is the case you will want to drop the term also,  that or add neck angle but that won't get the strings much closer to the body where it counts.  

The action on the guitar is good.  Matter of fact, This guitar, as well as my other Ibanez, I mainly play are the two most stable guitars I own.  Both are set up with neck relief of .028mm at the 9th fret, and the action is low enough just to remove any damping buzzing while playing(on my RG 1.75mm at 24th fret for E, 1.0mm on e, the DT is maybe a tad lower, only due to it having 21 frets).  My goal is to be able to lower the tremolo closer to the body on this guitar, as the tremolo sits high enough off the body to put my picking arm into an uncomfortable postion due to that I am used to lower action guitas, the string distance away from the body at times will have my picking hand travel a normal pickng arc, which results in the pick being slipped between the strings too deep.  If that makes any sense.  If I can lower the neck into the body some, say for argument 1/4", I can lower the tremolo 1/4" resulting in the strings being closer to the body resulting in a distance where I will not have to make too drastic change to muscle memory paths of picking mechanics as I have to now.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I did this to a Kramer Voyager that had the same problem. It was really easy. I cut a hole in a square mdf that was slightly larger than the neck pocket and used the flush cut router bit to follow the profile of the pocket. The mdf creates a stable platform for the router. I would clamp and use double-sided tape for extra stability. That said, check your pocket angle. Based on the pics and style of guitar, I am assuming there isn't any.

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  • 3 weeks later...

No there isn't an angle to the pocket.  I've decided that I am going to tackle this once I get back from Baltimore next month.  Until then I have too many other things going on.  I have to rebuild my pedal board so that I can fly with it and hopefully not have TSA wig out about what all those things are wired together, I also have two guitars in primer that I would like to shoot at least the color on before I leave.  We have also decided to rerecord the album, so that pre-production starts next weekend.  Not to mention my day job and I have to fit family in somwhere.

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Meh, TSA. Well I'm they'll racially profile you instead rather than look at what the boxes all wired up are. You guys all get seriously shafted by the idiocy of the TSA.

Yeah, we'll look at the guitar stuff once the x-rays have worn off and you're able to sit down again.

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True, unless you have a mug like mine.  Almost every time I fly with a pedal board, I happen to get the mouth breather that doesnt understand that the little boxes with wires connected to them that say terroristic things on them like Boss, Crybaby, ISP, and have titles like, Super Overdrive, Compressor/Sustainer, Chromatic tuner, etc.. aren't items of mass destruction.  Luckily I insist on making the suggested 2 hour before departure, this way I can deal with this nonsense.  Luckily I have not had to have the one on one search as of yet.  That would be depressing.

 

You guys know what TSA stands for right?

TOTAL SEXUAL ASSAULT

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  • 1 month later...

Well I finally tackled this job tonight.  No pictures as I went about it too fast as well as my confidence wasn't that good and was winging it.  The template I made was slightly smaller than the pocket which I cleaned up with a chisel.  Will sand it flat tomorrow as the router bit left trail marks in the wood.  The pocket was lowered 2/10". The neck sits proud of the face of the body similar distance to my RG's now.

While messing with this I went and took some measurements of all the routs dealing with the tremolo.  The top rout is a mess and do not think it is possible to fix unless I use a dremel router bit.  It needs to be lowered into the guitar body some. I can't believe I paid $300 to have this tremolo installed back in 1989.  The only measurement the guy got right was the mounting posts distance from the nut as well as the distance from each other(At least that was corrrect, the rest of the routing was just ugly).

The spring cavity was 4.5mm too short, as was the depth of the spring cavity.  As per Ibanez Edge manual the depth should be 18mm at claw end and 25mm at through hole.  I had 14mm and 16.7mm respectively.  This was I suppose one of the reasons the block kept bottoming out when I would pull up on the bar.  I fixed that with a chisel as this was easier than trying to figure out the proper angle to make a template for a router.

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Photos would definitely help. I'm sure a lot more people would weigh in with assistance or information if it were easier to visualise what you're dealing with.

Yeah, the TSA are a drain on public resources. They serve no useful purpose and fail to solve a problem which is far cleverer than they are.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I guess I never hit "Post" as I could have sworn I replied to this. 

I repaired the neck problem by routing away wood on the bottom of the neck pocket.  The neck now sits almost 1/4" deeper into the body.  This resulting in exposing a separate but related problem.  The tremolo top route was not deep enough to accommodate the lowering of the tremolo into the body to correctly create the proper tremolo angle as shown in the Edge installation manual.  I did not trust using my router to correct this due to not having a bit where I could it with a template.  The only place in town which carries a bit selection with top bearings in the diameter bit I wanted to use wanted $65 for a mid grade bit.  They also do not sell individual bearings so I could adapt the tools I already own.  As a work around I picked up a straight cut bit made for a Dremel tool.  I created a set of acrylic templates using the pre cut top route dimensions and using the top rout depth measurement from my RG, I fixed the top route depth.

This then led me to correcting the old original spring route cavity to modern dimensions, creating a behind the spring slope the installation manual calls for as well as lengthening the same cavity to accommodate the use of common size tremolo springs. Ibanez size springs are only sold via Ibanezrules.com unless you want to pay premium from Ibanez, or the stealership. I also like the feel of regular generic "Fender" sized springs anyways.

During a break on this project, I watched a video on Youtube on tinting oil for oil finished via two different methods.  The first is by using a linseed based oil paint(oil paint as in Bob Ross and Happy Trees and Clouds) diluted by linseed, the second by using the same type of dye I used in my other thread when I refinished this guitar two years ago.  This calls for adding the dye to the oil based and then adding in acetone to the mix which breaks up the solids in the dye allowing it to mix with the oil.  I really want to try the oil paint method seeing how I can mix the color I want so I sanded the finish off the guitar.  Dont worry I compensated for any wood removed off the top of the guitar when routing the tremolo/neck issues by removing a little more then the exact amount needed to correct the problems.

Once the body is sanded down to 600 grit, I will make a photo log of the refinish process and post in a new thread in the refinishing forum.

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  • 1 month later...

Just about had this project done and pulled an ultimate impatient bonehead maneuver. 

Let us reinstall the tremolo post studs with forgetting to remember yyour dumbass removed material from the top route at 2am and while tapping the stud in you blow through the backside of the guitar.  Luckily all damage is within the confines of the spring cavity and is essentially in one piece.  Just need to glue the splitting and clamp it up.  Put the project aside a few days as i have too many things on my plate to be dealing with this type of stuff right now.  The refin looks nice, but the color did an odd one during the process.  Have pictures of about 90% of it.  Will start a new thread for it to document after Christmas.  If i dont post til then, everyone have a God Jul, Christmas, hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, or hwatevah youz celebrates.  Please be safe so youre around next year. Already seen too many drunks on the road this week driving lime idiots for my liking.

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  • 9 months later...

Update on this topic.  Removing wood from the neck pocket worked some what.  The main problem was the tremolo anchor studs and posts.  As this tremolo was retrofitted to the guitar originally, The original cavity route on the high side was too close to the body face, so when drilling the studs deeper to set the posts further into the body, I blew through the high side and had to dowel and glue it back.  I attempted a second go as far as I dared due to the depth of the high side and left as is.  Will redo the body eventually so I can properly get decent action.  It will probably be better to just purchase a spare RG neck off the internet and make a new body from scratch.  Until then, the guitar is playable, but still goofy high action. 

While doing all this I redid the finish using the shou-sugi-ban technique and I actually liked the way it came out.  The only change I noticed using this finish was the pick attack is now really present.

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It didn't change the timbre much.  Just the initial pick is a bit more pronounced, compared to before. The body is basswood which is usually rather vanilla sounding being neither bright nor warm.  I would liken the pronounced pick attack now sounds more like something made from alder but retaining all the other tonal qualities of basswood.  Shou Sugi-Ban changes the molecular structure of the wood somewhat (at least that is what is claimed when I was researching how to do it) causing it to become more dense, or hardening at the molecular level perhaps?  Perhaps that is only to the cedar that is used in Japan for building siding.  All I can say is the guitar has always sounded good unplugged, just now is a little louder than before charring it. I did the entire guitar, not just the body, so the extra presence could also be coming off the neck resonance as that is maple? I only lightly charred the neck wood as I didn't want the fret board(not done) coming loose, or cause damage to the truss rod.

When I get home from work today I will post a couple photos of it.  I love the color it turned out as well as the texture it got from brushing off the charr.

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It's difficult to say. Roasting the wood might change how it is able to take on or lose moisture, and the Tung oil rubbed in certainly helps seal the surface. Thicker pieces of wood would be relatively unaffected inside, at least one would think. I don't know if there's any good information out there other than just more anecdotal, so we can only try and see if anybody else's experience correlates. I wouldn't mind doing a shou sugi-ban finish myself at some point, but I doubt I will A/B it before and after....more interested in the appearance I guess, but maybe....

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