matador34 Posted April 11, 2023 Report Share Posted April 11, 2023 Good evening people, I'm very new here so forgive if I break any forum rules, but I will try not to! I've been working on my first guitar build, a PRS style guitar for which I've got the neck and the body that I bought online with the idea of playing around with the staining the body and finishing it. However... It turned out the part of the neck that fits into the neck pocket (please do enlighten me if it has a name) was too thick and the fretboard was too high above the surface of the body. I decided to try and make it thinner by sawing at it and unfortunately made it too thin. I then got some some thin shims and started to glued them onto the neck to bring the fretboard to the right height, which I'm still in the process of doing. However number 2.... It turns out the neck pocket on the body is too wide for the neck as well!!! I am thinking of getting some more shims to patch up the missing width but I wondered whether anyone had any advice on what to do with this and would be so grateful for any tips! I also wondered about getting a piece of timber (I'm pretty sure the body is maple) and trying to carve it to the right shape to fill in the gap. As you can see it's not the best stuff that I bought, seeing as they don't fit together, but I'd really like to salvage something out of it! I've attached some pictures for you guys to see the issue. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted April 12, 2023 Report Share Posted April 12, 2023 Hi and welcome! Don't worry about breaking the rules, they seem to be very simple and easy to follow even for us non-English foreigners. The vocabulary can be challenging as some terms mean different things in various parts of the World. Also, some terms may frequently be used wrong especially by hobbyists who grab right sounding words from builder videos made by other hobbyists. The body end of the neck is called a heel or neck joint. A loose neck pocket is a common issue even if they're from one single manufacturer and carved using accurate templates. If the woods aren't properly dried ("green") they will continue drying and shrinking especially widthways. Shimming is a good way to address the issue and it can be done both in the pocket and on the heel. I'd recommend using veneers of known thickness for the sides of the pocket. The gap is not as wide as it looks so a sliver of 0.55mm veneer on both sides might be more than enough. Another option is to use thicker blocks and re-rout the pocket but on a heavily carved body it would be difficult to get the template fixed. In any case keep the centerlines aligned! It's way too easy to reshape the pocket to have a sideways angle. To get the height right you can either reapply material to the bottom of the heel or to the pocket. If the pocket has a flat bottom and you've already sawed the heel thinner, rebuilding the heel might be a better choice. It's easier to level the heel than the pocket! The body seems to be layered, the top being potentially maple and the bottom some sort of mahogany. Keep us informed and don't hesitate to ask before attempting to do something! Also remember that dry fitting is used even by the most skilled professionals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ADFinlayson Posted April 12, 2023 Report Share Posted April 12, 2023 this has happened to me more times than I care to admit. It's an easy fix though - Glue a thin veneer to the walls of the neck pocket and you will get a nice snug fit again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crusader Posted April 12, 2023 Report Share Posted April 12, 2023 One of my Les Pauls with Mahogany shim in place Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted April 12, 2023 Report Share Posted April 12, 2023 19 hours ago, matador34 said: Good evening people, I'm very new here so forgive if I break any forum rules, but I will try not to! I've been working on my first guitar build, a PRS style guitar for which I've got the neck and the body that I bought online with the idea of playing around with the staining the body and finishing it. However... It turned out the part of the neck that fits into the neck pocket (please do enlighten me if it has a name) was too thick and the fretboard was too high above the surface of the body. I decided to try and make it thinner by sawing at it and unfortunately made it too thin. I then got some some thin shims and started to glued them onto the neck to bring the fretboard to the right height, which I'm still in the process of doing. However number 2.... It turns out the neck pocket on the body is too wide for the neck as well!!! I am thinking of getting some more shims to patch up the missing width but I wondered whether anyone had any advice on what to do with this and would be so grateful for any tips! I also wondered about getting a piece of timber (I'm pretty sure the body is maple) and trying to carve it to the right shape to fill in the gap. As you can see it's not the best stuff that I bought, seeing as they don't fit together, but I'd really like to salvage something out of it! I've attached some pictures for you guys to see the issue. Cheers I'm not sure if I've picked up on something no one else here did... or if I've misunderstood... but here goes... when you say "the fretboard was too high above the surface of the body" that makes me wonder how you determined that? If you were putting a tom bridge on this guitar... it was supposed to have a neck angle... and if routing out for a strat style bridge... then not. Just wanted to point that out, and hopefully you determined this by laying a straight edge over your neck/frets and placing your bridge on the guitar at the intonnation line and ensuring that the straight edge is a little higher than the bridge(not including saddles)... and also keeping in mind that you typically would cut string grooves into the tom saddles. the piece you are talking about is the tenon. typically it is cut a hair proud of the pickup cavity as the legs of the pickup need to extend further into the guitar anyway... and often times folks will router this piece flush after the neck has been glued on. looking at your pic above... that neck is got a lot of space there. as many have mentioned a piece of veneer on either side might do it. Sometimes if it is closer than that, you can just spritz some water on both parts and let them swell... but in this case it's not close enough to get away with that. I guess it's captain obvious over here but I thought it worth mentioning that you def don't want to 'fill' the neck channel on one side only... as the neck needs to be centered. hope something there helps. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matador34 Posted April 13, 2023 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2023 Hi guys, Thanks so much for all the helpful and kind comments. It think I will do what you guys have suggested and glue a piece of veneer into the neck pocket to get the right fit (I'll glue a piece on each side to get the neck well centred). I'm going to continue layering up the neck joint to get it to the right height. It might be at a slight angle so I'll see whether I need to do some sanding/planing to get the fretboard at 0° to the body. In terms of the bridge I'm thinking of I was thinking of either a wraparound or a strat style bridge, for which I am under the impression there is no need for a neck angle? That's why I wanted to get the fretboard lower to have the bottom of the fretboard level with the surface of the body. Please do correct me if that is the wrong thing to do! Cheers again for all your help guys, I'll keep you all updated when there's some progress (might not be for a few days!) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted April 13, 2023 Report Share Posted April 13, 2023 2 hours ago, matador34 said: continue layering up the neck joint to get it to the right height. It might be at a slight angle There's two ways to address the height of the bridge. One is to raise the neck to the level of the bridge, the other and more preferable way is to seat it at an angle if the bridge is tall. Your options are far away from each other regarding height, a wraparound is as tall as a ToM. Having decided which bridge to use and getting it for testing would have made life much easier for you. That said, you've now learned why planning is important... Guess this explains how to deal with different heights of bridges: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted April 13, 2023 Report Share Posted April 13, 2023 4 hours ago, matador34 said: Hi guys, Thanks so much for all the helpful and kind comments. It think I will do what you guys have suggested and glue a piece of veneer into the neck pocket to get the right fit (I'll glue a piece on each side to get the neck well centred). I'm going to continue layering up the neck joint to get it to the right height. It might be at a slight angle so I'll see whether I need to do some sanding/planing to get the fretboard at 0° to the body. In terms of the bridge I'm thinking of I was thinking of either a wraparound or a strat style bridge, for which I am under the impression there is no need for a neck angle? That's why I wanted to get the fretboard lower to have the bottom of the fretboard level with the surface of the body. Please do correct me if that is the wrong thing to do! Cheers again for all your help guys, I'll keep you all updated when there's some progress (might not be for a few days!) so... what I'm hearing is that you don't have a bridge in hand... which suggests to me that you may be headed in the wrong direction. A wraparound bridge WILL require an angle to the neck (typically 1.5-2deg) and you really want to have that in hand before you adjust the height of the heel... putting a neck w/o angle together with a wrap tail is going to mean your neck will likely be 1/2" tall sitting off the guitar... and then pickups would be too low... all sorts of potential issues. Unless you are going to 'recess' the bridge itself... you'll need an angled neck pocket. If you go with a strat bridge... no such requirement. hope something there is helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matador34 Posted April 26, 2023 Author Report Share Posted April 26, 2023 Hi guys, So sorry for not taking the time to answer these, I've ben vert busy with work and haven't had any time to work on the project! Thank you so much for the subsequent replies though. From your advice, I think I'm going to simplify my task and just go for a strat style pickup, this is my first guitar project so I don't want to complicate it too much! I'll come back to you guys when I've had the chance to do some more work on the project and give you all a little update! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted April 26, 2023 Report Share Posted April 26, 2023 26 minutes ago, matador34 said: I think I'm going to simplify my task and just go for a strat style pickup You lost me there for a second, but I think you meant to say bridge. Because I don’t think putting single coils into humbucker pockets would make anyone’s life easy A hardtail bridge is your easiest bet. https://www.google.fi/search?q=hardtail+bridge&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matador34 Posted April 26, 2023 Author Report Share Posted April 26, 2023 Oh oops yes, I did mean bridge Yeah I think I'll go for a hardtail! Cheers for the adivce! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.