Threaded neck inserts with angled neck pocket.

[eoinbmorg]

I'm interested in using threaded inserts on the neck of my build. I have a superstrat body with a slight neck pocket angle to account for a top-mounted floyd rose. Is the tolerance for installation on these inserts fine enough that just installing them dead vertical into the neck will cause issues when bolting the 1degree angled neck to the pocket? Or should it be fine once I tighten all the bolts up? I've also seen different builders pre-tap the holes vs not. Right now I'm thinking of doing a manual tap since I don't have a drill press to drive them in (by manually cranking the chuck). Anyone have experience with this on a maple flatsawn neck?

[Bizman62]

One degree doesn't sound much in the heel that's only a couple of cm thick and even less so when remembering that the holes on the heel should be loose enough so that the screw/bolt can easily be pushed through. Thus the 1 degree shouldn't be an issue on the heel.

What's important is to get the threaded inserts just a hair towards the nut so that the end of the neck is tight against the end of the neck pocket. Even that can be fixed to a degree by loosening the bolts a quarter of a turn with strings on and let the strings pull any gap tight, then tighten the screws/bolts. That tiny trick can improve sustain remarkably.

[eoinbmorg]

That's a great point that I hadn't really considered... the body holes should definitely have a little wiggle room if I choose the right bolts

I'll definitely keep that in mind for drilling the holes. My plan is to use brad-point bits so I should have pretty good control over the exact placement and be able to shift 0.5mm towards the nut. Thanks for the tip.