High E to edge of fretboard - am I too close?

[hittitewarrior]

Hey all!

   Been awhile since I've been on here, but through COVID times, I've been slowly working on a build.  I put the bridge on a couple days ago, and noticed a potentially concerning thing.   Upon tightening everything up, I put a string roughly where it goes for the high E position, and I'm a little concerned I might be too close to the edge of the fretboard.  I'm curious as to other's opinions.  

    After taking these pics, and troubleshooting, I noticed that when I drilled the bridge mounting screw pilot holes, I did not get them perfectly located... even though I tried to be very careful and press a starting divot with the point of a forstner, then use the drill press to drill straight... I'm about 1/16" skewed on the very tail of the bridge.  I loosened everything, tightened the most centered screw first, then worked down on the rest of the screws... made it better to about 1/32" of skew.   I'm hesitant to try to fill the holes and drill again, but also may be over thinking this.   

   What sort of distance to the edge of the fretboard do your designs typically have (21st fret)?

Thanks in advance for your opinions!

 

[henrim]

With the angle you have on the fret ends it looks to me that you are quite close to the edge. Have you stringed the bass side? Because the bridge is off-center you have larger gap on that side and it may not look balanced. I would probably fill the holes and re-drill. Or maybe first string the guitar and try how it feels.

[JGTay]

As Henrim says, it looks very close to the angled fret ends. Personally I would fill the holes and redo the bridge position.

You could then put both E strings on and position the bridge central to how the strings run. 

[Bizman62]

That looks somewhat similar to my first build, a Tele. So what did Master Luthier Veijo Rautia do when looking at my build? He simply cranked the neck down to correct the angle! And it has stayed intact for almost a decade now...

As you know the holes in the body should be large enough to allow the screws fall through without winding. That alone might be enough but you can also try to file them a bit oval towards the direction you need to correct the angle. So basically the upper neck side screw should be left as is and the rest be shaped around a circle or tangent or whatever it's called. Like this - notice that the image is highly exaggerated! I'm talking about ½mm or so:

If that works you can even add a small shim to the upper left, marked blue. Most likely that would be unnecessary unless your neck pocket is significantly too wide.

[nakedzen]

That^

Or get a bridge with sideways adjusting saddles.

[hittitewarrior]

Thank you all for the thoughts and input.  I haven't had a chance to try this further, but hopefully this weekend    

Going to start by putting strings on high E and low E and assess symmetry.  Would also like to get some measurements from a few completed guitars to see the range (maybe that's a good excuse to stop by guitarcenter later today :-).......

Depending on how off I am, I'll consider the solutions suggested.   Really appreciated input.  Thank you all!