Padouk Parts-Caster. Need advice.

[Stormhead]

HOWDY!
I'm doing a "Parts-Caster" build project. I have a non-factory Telecaster body, a Warmoth Telecaster neck, and all the custom hardware to slap on it. I can post pics of the progress if anyone cares. I am a novice when it comes to basic Luthiery. So i need some advice from experienced woodworkers/luthiers. I want to know what your approach would be. I have MY own ideas about how to proceed, but I am so aprehensive about executing any of my plans because I paid so much money for the Warmoth neck. And the body wasn't exactly cheap either. 

Before I describe my predicament, here are the basic specs of what I am working with...
SPECS:
*Body is chambered and was built from a standard Telecaster template by some random guy in his garage. The neck pocket already has mounting screw holes for mounting neck. Top wood is padouk and body bottom wood is mahogany. 
*Neck is all Padouk wood (neck and fretboard), made by Warmoth. neck heel dimensions are standard Telecaster specs and scale length, but there are no mounting holes to mount it into neck pocket. I can give the full custom specs I ordered if anyone is interested, but they are not relevant to this particular step of mating the neck heel with the neck pocket. 
*The bridge is a Stetsbar Pro II Telecaster Flat-Mount style tremolo bridge. This bridge drops in to replace a factory hard-tail Telecaster bridge plate. No routing or drilling is required. 
*The nut is a Floyd Rose R2 nut. Warmoth already routed the nut shelf into headstock, so it is ready to go.  

THE PREDICAMENT:
So before I drill those holes into the neck (using the body's existing mounting holes), I need to know 2 things:

1) Do I need to install a shim to create a back angle on the neck? I may have to do this because I the Stetsbar Pro II Telecaster flat-mount tremolo style bridge has a significantly higher saddle height than a factory standard hardtail Telecaster flat-mount bridge. Stetsbar includes a little wooden neck shim with their bridges because they anticipate many customers having higher saddle heights after they replace the factory bridges with Stetsbar ones. I need to determine if the angle/shim is needed BEFORE I drill the mounting holes into the neck heel (because I will be using the holes that are already drilled into the body's neck pocket as my guide holes). If I were to go ahead and drill the holes into the neck first before figuring out this stuff, then I would be in deep shit if it turns out I need a shim/angle because tilting the neck at any angle would cause the neck holes to no-longer be parallel/in-line with the body neck pocket holes. 

2) The guy who built the body made the neck pocket just a nut-hair too wide, so the neck has like 1mm of wiggle room and is not a true snug fit. So I need to shim the side walls of the neck pocket somehow. I imagine this would involve filling in the thin gaps with a shim or an enamel/Bondo type filling on either the left or right (or both) sides of neck tenon, depending on where my bridge/nut centerline is. I must accomplish this BEFORE drilling the neck mounting holes, so that they align with the body's existing mounting holes while also maintaining relative symmetry (symetry of the neck width) to the bridge/nut centerline. 

Also, let me know if anyone has drilling/sanding tips for Padouk wood. It is extremely dense heavy wood. I am worried about cracking it, but I also have zero experience with it. Should I use some type of grease in my drilling holes to aid with drilling and inserting the screws (so as to lubricate and prevent cracking)?

📽🎞here is a video I made showing what I am working with and describing my problem, I case you dont feel like reading all this:
https://youtu.be/nSWyRNL6wcw

I appreciate any advice. 

Thanks!!

[Bizman62]

Hi and welcome to the addiction! Here's my thoughts, not stone carved by any means:

1) - First and foremost, find the centerlines on both the neck and the body! When you know that, you can clamp the neck in place for further adjustment.
   - Most likely you'll need a wedge shaped shim if the cavity and heel are true to Fender specs. You don't know until you have the bridge to measure with. A long metal ruler as you mentioned in the video is the right tool.
  - I don't think the small angle would matter significantly even if you attach the neck before shimming. After all, there ought to be some wiggle room in the screw holes of the body so that the screws only grab to the neck when tightening.

2) - I wouldn't use anything other than wood for filling the gap in the neck pocket, especially not with expensive woods.
    - Again, wait until you've got the bridge. There's a slight chance that you only would need to fill the short cutaway side of the pocket but you can't tell until you've got the bridge. 
   - With the bridge in place and the neck clamped you don't have to string it up, The two E-tuners in place you can use basically anything starting from knitting yarn or sowing thread to align the neck with the bridge. You can even use a small line laser if you have one! Or lay a long straigth edge ruler flat on the fretboard with the edge on the string grooves of an E string at both ends, repeating for the other E string line. No matter what you don't need to tension the makeshift strings more than what's needed to keep them straight.

As with any wood, sand with a very light hand. Only let the chips of the sandpaper dig halfways into the wood so you'll have space between the grits for the dust. And dedust your paper often.

If you're worried about the drill cracking the wood, start drilling backwards! That prevents the bit from chewing into the wood and splitting it. Lubricating the screws is good practice, all you need to do is to turn the screws into wax or soap, that will make the threads slick enough. Any semi soft wax or soap will do - table candles can be too brittle but graveyard candles are perfect! Although beeswax would smell nicer...

[mistermikev]

afa angle... you might want to just lay your parts out as best as possible and use some string to see what is going to happen.  Whether you need a shim or not is going to come down to how thick the neck is and how deep the pocket is.  Even on production made guitars that are 5/8"depth per spec and necks that are 3/4" + fretboard... there is a surprising amount of wiggle between one mans 5/8 and anothers'.  Long story long... solve that problem once you know you have it

afa sides... while gaps on the side of neck pocket are not ideal... there are lots of great new and vintage guitars that have them to some degree or another.  If the neck screws are tight the neck isn't going to move.  that said - very few of us here would be happy with that (think I can speak for y'all).  

as an easy fix... you can just glue multiple pieces of veneer in there until the neck fits.  assuming you use the sm veneer on either side it will center the neck... but again doing a moch up might be a good idea because depending on your bridge/pickups center might not be where you want it.

look fwd to build pics.

[Stormhead]

Thanks folks! 

Your words of advice are not only informative, but encouraging. I'll try those things and down the line when I get time, I'll see it through and post pics of my progress. 

Thanks again!