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Post by Auf Kiltre on Mar 7, 2021 11:00:45 GMT -5
I've probably learned and forgotten the science behind the necessity to shim a bolt on neck, but I'm curious how often you cobblers of Teles and Strats find the necessity to install one. Seems about half of my partscasters have them. The embarrassing thing is I'm sure I'm not following the science by what dictates the need. If I piece it together and find my saddle screws protruding really high, I automatically shim to compensate. I'll generally get out my micrometer and mimic the 0.5 degree Stewmac shim specs using some type of cardstock (I just used some paint sample cards) and it works.
I'm guessing this all hinges on disparity in specs between neck pocket and neck, particularly with older pieces that may have flattened out over time.
At what point of assembly do you determine the need for a neck pocket shim?
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Post by Leftee on Mar 7, 2021 11:05:12 GMT -5
Pretty much how you do it. I like the saddles midrange in their height adjustment, give or take a little.
I’ve noticed that, when I buy bodies from USA Made Guitars on Reverb and necks from Warmoth, the combination rarely requires a shim. 🤔
It’s when I first string up the guitar and do a rough setup that I figure it out. So right at the end of my build process.
The very last thing I do is install the string tree.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Mar 7, 2021 11:32:58 GMT -5
Once the CNC era got tuned in, neck angles in pockets didn't vary much and shimming became much less necessary. There is some variation in necks - how the fingerboard is sanded can change the projection up and down a bit, and a good neck maker will make sure to sand more on the nut end than the heel end to avoid it tapering down into the instrument. That is good practice for the neck angle (in moderation), but also is better aesthetically. If a fingerboard is thicker at the nut end it tends to look funny.
Neck angles need to be addressed when the other action adjustment things are set correctly, and the action is too high, or the saddle(s) is/are too low for your liking. With bolt on necks, I've found there are a handful of things I can check before tossing in a shim that can do the job better. Sometimes there is some weirdness on the back of the neck (stickers are one thing to look out for), finish build up at the back of the pocket, not being bolted in properly to begin with, getting hung up with too much threading on the body, or a dog-tongue in the neck. The truss rod typically does its best work between the nut and around the 7th fret. Around the heel the sheer girth of the neck is what holds it straight. Between those two areas you can have a semi-permanent bow, especially if the neck profile is really thin up there. The spot right around the 12th/13th fret is notorious, as that is the upper most part that still has a carve to it. This is especially common on basses. I've heat pressed those kinks out and gotten a straighter neck, and as a nice by-product I also improve the neck angle, and can remove a shim in the process. It is another reason why I'm an advocate of chunkier necks as the progress up to the higher frets, they are MUCH more stable.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Mar 8, 2021 11:43:54 GMT -5
Do any of you guys subscribe to shim material making a sonic difference. Seems more of a structural integrity thing.
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Post by Leftee on Mar 8, 2021 13:08:41 GMT -5
I splurge on the Stewy neck shims. I like ‘em, and I like using such a shim on guitars I sell.
Does it make a huge difference? Or any difference from most other methods? Probably not.
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Post by themaestro on Mar 8, 2021 14:51:59 GMT -5
I don't need anything fancy for a shim. I've used business cards, 3x5 card stock, a piece of sandpaper. Just stick a strip of it in the end of the pocket that needs raised. I have never noticed any problems with structural integrity, sustain or tone.
I may take flack for this, but I liken the fancy tapered shims to those highly expensive audiophile power and speaker cables.
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leftrightout
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Post by leftrightout on Mar 8, 2021 16:29:27 GMT -5
I've used cigarette rolling papers for extremely thin shims and if you want to make them stiff or create a tapered shim layer them up and spray them with some lacquer
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Post by Leftee on Mar 8, 2021 16:54:39 GMT -5
I don't need anything fancy for a shim. I've used business cards, 3x5 card stock, a piece of sandpaper. Just stick a strip of it in the end of the pocket that needs raised. I have never noticed any problems with structural integrity, sustain or tone. I may take flack for this, but I liken the fancy tapered shims to those highly expensive audiophile power and speaker cables. Nah! You’re good. 😊
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Mar 8, 2021 17:00:44 GMT -5
Next time I'm gonna try a piece of bacon.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Mar 8, 2021 18:46:44 GMT -5
Sometimes I'll get a guitar that just sounds better with no shim so I wouldn't discount the idea that a giant gap hurts tone, but it certainly isn't in the realm of what people think it would be. The glue gaps in set neck instruments is also larger than many people want to think it is, but that's a whole other issue.
If I was only working on my own guitars or special projects, I'd be doing the Stew Mac shims. The cost is easier to justify when it is your own thing and you have that focus. I don't think many people would like it if I passed on the cost of shims to the customer, so I don't do that.
I do make tapered shims in some cases. The couple that come in mind were nearly identical situations. They were old, janky '60s import archtop things that were totally built with the wrong neck angle. The shims that were in there had compressed into the wood, and a small one just wasn't going to cut it. The full size ones were probably around 1/8" at the thick end - a typical Fender shim only needs to be around a quarter of that.
I wouldn't expect the material itself to make much of a difference, within reason. Any loss/gain in tone is going to have to do with coupling rather than specific resonances and material sonic qualities. As a thought experiment, imagine the neck and body not actually touching (no idea how this would work, but bear with me) - as the strings vibrate, the neck will vibrate sympathetically at one frequency and have a feedback quality into the string on one end and the body will have a cumulative sympathetic response in a completely different manner. (This reflective sort of vibration is how wood can even make a difference on an electric guitar with magnetic pickups, since the pickups really only care what the string is doing) It would have odd harmonics, almost a weird out-of-phase thing going on for it, and probably some extra hot spots and dead spots. Next step closer is a neck bolted on, but with the bolts loose and the neck sort of hovering above the pocket. We can imagine that sounding pretty awful. So, when a shim is in place, I would expect that those issues would alleviate due to a nice cinching down of the neck and coupling of the components; as to the importance of the shim, I'd put it in proportion to the actual mass of that part, which is very small. Use a ginormous piece of steel or a piece of rubber and I bet there'd be a difference, but any material suited for the job...? I'm not likely to think it'll matter.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Mar 8, 2021 20:14:04 GMT -5
So what are the ramifications of forgoing the shim (assuming angle of the neck isn't too much of an issue) and just using shorter screws for the saddles? Again, assuming any fretting issue is resolved with a fret leveling, does the break angle at the saddles factor into anything?
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Post by Peegoo 🏁 on Mar 9, 2021 2:02:00 GMT -5
So what are the ramifications of forgoing the shim (assuming angle of the neck isn't too much of an issue) and just using shorter screws for the saddles? So long as you have adjustability at the bridge to get the string action over the frets into the happy zone for easy play and best tone (as well as adjustability of pickup height in relation to the strings), that's all that matters from the standpoint of simple geometry. Practically, however, the distance between the strings and the top of the guitar matter quite a bit to most players, and adding or removing a neck shim does affect this dimension once the guitar's geometry is dialed in. To put this into perspective, imagine playing an archtop without a finger plate or raised pickguard on it. The strings will feel really high off the guitar. Even if the player does not rest a finger on the guitar's top when playing, many frequently brush the top with the pinky/ring finger as a tactile reference to maintaining their hand position. All this occurs automatically suconsciously, and if the string height is outside the parameters of what a player is used to, it requires a change to their technique.
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sirWheat
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Post by sirWheat on Mar 9, 2021 7:00:10 GMT -5
I have wondered about break angle as well. I understand the argument regarding string tension but am not sure what I think. Seems that the difference in tension between how your guitar is now and how it'd be if you shim it would be very slight.
I have a kit guitar that is Fender scale and uses a tune o matic bridge. The bridge adjusters are just barely off of the body and for a while I thought I'd end up shimming it but it's been the same since it was put together eight years ago. I will say that for a long scale guitar it does seem to play comparatively easy tension-wise. So I dunno.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Mar 9, 2021 8:47:07 GMT -5
So what are the ramifications of forgoing the shim (assuming angle of the neck isn't too much of an issue) and just using shorter screws for the saddles? If we're talking Strats & Teles with string through body/trem block, less so than other guitars. Jazzmasters are probably the worst nightmare for this because without a shim and with light strings the strings CONSTANTLY pop out of the saddles. I guess if you use big ol' flat wounds it isn't too bad, but it is a definite design flaw. To add to what Peegoo says, many guitar players are self taught and have very odd playing habits. You just never know when someone is going to have a conniption about the strangest things, like being able to reach under the strings or who knows what.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Mar 9, 2021 8:55:40 GMT -5
Yeah I can see that. We get used to such incremental minutiae that it doesn't take much to make something feel (or look) "off".
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Post by Peegoo 🏁 on Mar 9, 2021 11:06:44 GMT -5
^^^ Very small dimensions are something many guitarists are aware of. Most of the population is perfectly happy with a resolution down to 1/32" or perhaps half a millimeter.
But players can feel a difference of just a few thousandths of an inch, even if they cannot see it.
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Post by rdr on Apr 17, 2021 9:35:42 GMT -5
My recently acquired Cabronita Tele had very little break angle over the saddles, such that the high E kept popping out of the saddle groove. This was due to the installed Bigsby where the installer didn't know he had to compensate. I installed a neck shim made of an old credit card. Now the angle is great, the screws are half way thru the saddles, and it still sounds great!
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Post by rdr on May 3, 2021 14:54:29 GMT -5
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Wrnchbndr
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Post by Wrnchbndr on May 6, 2021 12:25:21 GMT -5
I only use shim materials that are not compressible - plastic or metal. For the typical Fender, I’ll use a pair of thin guitar picks in the pocket corners. I also keep flat sections of that clear evil plastic that many things in Walmart come encased in. In twenty years I’ve never had a client comment on any changes in tone after a shim is installed. I may even apply a small drop of CA under a guitar pick to keep it in place on a guitar with a heel adjustable truss rod so the next guy to adjust the truss rod doesn’t accidentally lose the shims - Just a small drop. Beer can aluminum is good under locking nuts as is aluminum foil.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on May 6, 2021 13:43:22 GMT -5
I have also used thin picks successfully at the rear of the pocket. Curious about placement on those weirdo guitars that require a front pocket shim. I recently did one using a trimmed Stew Mac wood shim. It worked but looks kinda ugly close up.
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