Technically correct; but given that the majority of electric guitars are sub $500, are played through amps of dubious quality via an array of effects, unless your a virtuoso, own a top end instrument or are a perfectionist the tone loss between a business card and a wooded shim will be, in my view indiscernible.
so at 2:45 he finally gets to the question ? what is this ? oratory class and comedy central ? Use business cards that are all the same thickness. Fill from the rear of the pocket to about 1/3 or 1/2 the pocket length of the last used one... layered cards make an angle and hard paper is very close to thin wood and easy to trim to match the pocket outline. Use 8mm length Allen saddle screws vs. the 10mm length that is standard and you may not need a shim at all !
It's a plague brought on by the way TH-cam works. By filling the first couple of minutes with nonsense, it keeps people watching more of the video. The higher % watch time, the YT algorithms consider it a better quality of video. Hence why channel owners do this, so that people watch more of the video and are more likely to be picked up in recommended videos or search results. Personally I turn off if it takes too long to get to the damn point!
Thanks for the very helpful video. I just made a wood shim by slivering off a thin wafer of pine on the table saw, glued it to the neck as you suggested and sanded it in place until the height and angle came out right, sand-test-repeat. It only took about an hour and it made a serious improvement to action and feels quite nice now. The sustain is quite good, actually I think it's better than before since I sanded the pocket and now have very good wood-wood connection. I was also able to raise bridge saddles so now I don't have nasty adjustment screws sticking all the way out (which I always hated).
Thanks for the great tip about gluing the shim material to the neck. I kind of ran with that thought. Instead of gluing to the neck, I stapled a thin piece of wood to a squared 4 X 4. That gave me something to hold on to. I then ran it to my belt sander until I thought it was right. The staple heads sanded off but the legs held on till I finished the workpiece. It took a couple tries but it worked perfectly! Thank you so much!
From Leo: Good hardware stores have Birch and Walnut veneer tape, 3/4 inch wide to hide the end grains on cabinet work. It is .020" (0.5mm) thick. Use two if needed. Works great, and inexpensive
I had to shim a guitar once. I didn't have shims but I had a chisel, sandpaper, file, and some titebond II glue. I filled the rear end of the neck pocket with the glue and tilted the guitar just slightly to the angle I thought I needed the shim to be and let the glue dry hard as a rock. Then a little chisling and filing in the pocket to even it all out and it worked perfectly.
Thanks Ben for the tip about gluing wood to the neck to shim it. My Zebra wood kit neck is loose from side to side! and I have to adjust it to fit it to the centreline. The neck is to be glued in place so I shall take your advice.
I make my shims out of old credit cards, sanded to a wedge shape with a belt sander. Trial and error is critical to find the correct angle. several cards can be stacked up when big corrections are needed.
something I believe I have noticed in shimming some strat guitar necks. Is that if I shim up the neck higher somewhat, and then raise the saddles to retain the same low string action, that the higher shimmed neck seems to bring out a louder acoustic response, ie more resonance out of the guitar. Have you found this to be true ? Thanks
Is there any advantage to making a neck shim out of brass? I happen to have a machine shop and lots of brass shim stock, so it would be simple for me to make it from brass. The neck is shimmed with strips cut from a business card as a test and it's working well, so I know the thickness already.
Thanks Ben as always your answers are accompanied by the best reasons. Relieving my "where did I go wrong syndrome". I feel much better now Doc. I can almost unclench my jaw...
Just found some interesting wood that may be good for a shim. Cigar tubes usually have ceder on the inside of the tube. It's very thin. About .010. I rolled a few out.....got to be careful with them. Probably be best to humidify them good before using.
Thanks so much for the advice! I was really thinking....is it better to add a little extra wood on the bottom of the guitar body, or attach it to the end of the neck and then, give it a shape? You've resolved my dilemma!! Many thanks
Conversely, I happened to have just used masking tape to fix a tele copy without a truss rod. It turned an unresponsive but great-sounding guitar into a responsive and great-sounding guitar. The pressure on those four layers after tightening the screws is such that I can't imagine much loss of tone, transference or sustain. Not verified by anything except my own ears and hands, of course; but the experience of many years playing and tone-chasing, and my highly anal sense of hearing for my own guitars, is not nothing. There were none of the infinitesimal triggers I associate with a negative change in tone or response. So, everyone - try it. Of course there are better ways to do it - better mainly in terms of permanence, neatness and professionalism - but tape will allow you to test shimming at the very least. Another benefit is that you can screw right through it when refitting the neck, removing the need to use a very narrow, perfectly shaped or drilled shim.
I shimmed the neck on a t Style a while back with a tapered shim that I made. Just laying it in there. At the next string change I removed the neck and glued the shim in. It seemed to make a huge difference in tone and tuning stability. Still has me scratching my head.
for those of you who struggle with making shims and dont have a woodshop, try this: keep your tape shim, use a knife to split the tape so its no bigger than a quarter inch, you want as little width as possible with the same height that already works. make sure you are happy with the shimmed action and then take some saran wrap and wrap a single layer around the neck joint, tape on top of the fretboard to keep it out of the way. then you can take some epoxy or JB weld and put a coating in the neck pocket, little heavier near the tape shim so it fills the space and then bolt the neck on but not super tight. The epoxy/JB is harder than the wood so it wont dampen your sustain, but it fills the air space in the pocket and it will essentially glue itself to the saran wrap, not the neck. the reason you dont tighten it down super tight is because some of that glue will get on the screws and you'll need a good twist to break the screws loose. do NOT use watery glue like superglue or you'll fuse the whole thing into a set neck and its bad. if done right, the epoxy pretty much fills the gap and forms an integral shim in the neck pocket and stick to the saran, so the neck is still removable with a light tug. you can leave it together and that's fine but you can also remove the neck and peel out the saran wrap. either way the empty space should be filled with resin harder than the wood and you have a mechanically perfect neck joint with no sustain or tone loss. its a little more work but if you dont have access to woodworking tools this just basically requires a paper plate, tape, saran wrap and something to stirr glue like a pencil or toothpick. now if you really want it to stay, you can just stright-JB/epoxy the neck on and basically you have a set neck guitar but if you mess that up it doesnt come off, so that's a commitment, better to use the saran wrap and if you love it you can always go back and skim-coat it for a set-neck.
I'm digging that idea! I'd even put plastic down in the pocket that way it's not super permanent. It would stick well enough on the sides to stay put but if you needed to get it out, it would just pry out.
When the screws are backed off a half turn while the guitar is tuned to pitch the string tension will increase the important pressure of the wood to wood contact linearly with the direction of the strings. If when the guitar is checked and it has gone a few cents flat , that is an indication that there was a space between the end of the neck and the bridge end of the pocket. The increased contact pressure will improve both tone and sustain as the neck will function more like a set or through neck. Although soft shims at the back of the pocket may reduce sustain somewhat the most important contact point is the end of the neck and the bridge end of the pocket. I always do this with every screw on neck build I do and it always sounds better after the procedure. The screws can be re-tightened and the sustain improvement will remain as long as the string tension is on when the screws are snugged up.. The screw holes in the body should be large enough so that the screws can easily pass through, and only thread into the neck wood to ensure that this linear pressure is NOT on the screws, but purely wood to wood.
@@CrimsonCustomGuitars No charge man. It's refreshing to see a luthier that doesn't profess to knowing it all. We should all try to learn something new every day.
I fitted a neck to the squire body I bought off ebay.All the strings were touching the frets apart from top and bottom e. I used the tremolo cover to shim the tremolo saddle , and adjusted all the allen screws to raise the strings.They were now clear but I had fret buzz. The neck was too tight in the pocket so I cleared all the pocket out and gave it a light sanding.I then orbital sanded the neck that goes in the pocket , not too much tho. The strings were now miles away from the frets at pos 12 etc.i now adjusted the allens screws lowering them all down.So I went from one extreme to the other just with a little sanding now I have probably got to make a shim like u just explained.it was my first project.
There's a few comments about materials for making the shim so I thought I'd let you know my experience. Different materials can make a difference to sustain - BUT - I found that hard materials such as plastic and metal changed the sound of the pick attack to something very unpleasant to my ears. Stay with wood unless you want ice pick attack to your tone.. It does, however, raise an interesting question about Fender micro tilt systems and what they might be doing to your tone..!
Microtilt system - yes.... I wondered that as well. If the tilt screw is lifting that section of the neck slightly off the pocket then there must be a gap - and therefore less sustain as the neck to body isn't fully in contact.
When i have a badly shaped neck pocket (gouges/needs s shim) i just put bondo in the bottom and wrap the neck in a teflon dam (wax paper works) and press the exact shape into the bondo then let it sit till it dries, perfect every time!!
Hello Ben, how is the new format working out for you now? Sometimes I think you still look a tad flustered BUT sometimes you actually look, and sound, relatively relaxed. Ben, I worry about you... Cheers, -buddy
what do you think of using a staple on the inside of body wings where we will not be cutting later( i.e. routing or drilling) to keep the wings from slipping while we clamp/glue? i saw the tip in a video on youtube at How to Build an Electric Guitar-Video 6-Body Wings pt1 and wondered what you thought.
This neck shim “sustain” argument makes about as much sense as the “screw the pickups to the body” fairytale. Too much time obsessing over minuscule things and not playing. Lol.
A small piece of paper business card in the back of the pocket can’t hurt anything. Not even a mm once it’s smashed down was all I needed. A full stew Mac .025 was way too much. I may try to make it slightly thicker maybe two pieces of Business card still won’t be a mm once smashed down or maybe use the thinnest part of a .025 stew Mac shim. In very back of the neck pocket only behind the screws.
Many guitarists have inserted their favorite, or a handy, guitar pick to shim their guitar neck. Now ... need to find a tonewood pick for a shim ;) Ben, Interesting comment on the 1/4 turn vs tight bolting. I've seen recommendations for stringing up the guitar, loosen the heel bolts only and then reseat them tight while the string tension is on in order to get the best contact/sustain/tone.
Could you do a podcast about headless bass/guitars and using specialized bridge or simply moving the machine tuners to the bottom of the instrument. And which is better or easyer
I have a Tele that has a good straight neck, correct string height at nut but strings buzz slightly around 5th fret to 12th. I currently have a thin shim in the pocket. What is the difference between that set up & removing the shim in conjunction with lowering the bridge saddles. Will the latter cure the fret buzz?
Alan Howell That was exactly my problem with my strat. But I took out the shim and it didn’t sound better. I loosened the truss rod a quarter turn and put the shim back in and it feels great.
A neck question. Some videos and guitar collectors believe that using a neck rest on the bench when setting up a guitar and leveling frets, the neck bows and gives a false level. Will your guitar neck actually bow under it's own weight with the body on the bench and the neck on a neck brace ?
It would have been good had you mentioned Stu Mac shims. They are pricey but one does not have to chance screwing their neck up gluing wood to it then wood working. Much easier to play with a few shims of different sizes than woodwork to fit. Just my take on it. Guitar parts are not cheap especially necks. I seem to have a guitar that needs some shim adjustment or nut adjustment, new nut or both. That is why I watched this video. Sorry you missed the mark on this one.
BigEdWo experience mainly followed by a bit of science.. hard materials like a good joint transmit vibrations better and lead to increased sustain.. hard wood versus soft wood gives vastly different amounts of sustain in a guitar body and the saem goes here. Now whether you believe that acoustic sustain transmits very well through to the amp etc is another story and remains to be proven/disproven imo. Thanks for watching.
I've used a couple of pieces of black electrical tape to shim the necks of a couple basses I own and for more than 10 years I have had no problems and no difference in tone.
Unknown if my question was seen on the last video since it was buried by my other comments: I'm about to do a refret on a Steinberger Synapse transcale using stainless steel fretwire. Why is it I see people ruining all sorts of end nippers trying to cut this stuff, when using a small hack saw doesn't seem like it would be much more work? Not to mention more control over how the end of the fret is shaped before beveling. And also, does phenolic/ebonal/other plastic fingerboard material chip out when removing frets like ebony does or is it usually more forgiving? I'm also thinking conventional wisdom of heating the fret with the soldering iron might not apply due to these synthetic fingerboards being made of thermoset resins which do not melt or become more malleable with heat, I'm also thinking the fret metal is just going to expand and make it more difficult to remove, however the issue of the frets possibly being glued in with CA glue makes me question this. Any tips/tricks?
If I were to follow his recommendation, I'd use just a dot of Elmer's school glue. Only because you not trying to bond the shim on the neck forever, just enough to shape it and install the neck. I'd just want to give myself an out in case I swap parts around FG or whatever reason and I could easily pop it off. I hate when someone beforehand glued the hell out of a nut to where it wont just pop out with a little tap on the side without ruining it or chopping something.
I have a strat , I prefer single cuts but had to have at least one . anyhow it has the vintage truss rod adjustment. and it is a huge pain in the @%#+! !!! it's straight then under tension it has relief . I adjust to make it as straight as possible but just will not go straight . how can I level the frets with this mess !
Shoot! So many people being fiddly trying to shape separate shims when it would be better to just glue on the shim and whittle to down as needed, how simple!
God i want to like these videos but every single one, you go on and on, its like you are writing a paper for high school and have to hit a certain word amount. This video could have been a couple minutes.
Way to much pointless off topic boring banter. I reccomend getting right to the point in order to keep the viewers attention, I couldn't even finish the video..
Technically correct; but given that the majority of electric guitars are sub $500, are played through amps of dubious quality via an array of effects, unless your a virtuoso, own a top end instrument or are a perfectionist the tone loss between a business card and a wooded shim will be, in my view indiscernible.
so at 2:45 he finally gets to the question ? what is this ? oratory class and comedy central ? Use business cards that are all the same thickness. Fill from the rear of the pocket to about 1/3 or 1/2 the pocket length of the last used one... layered cards make an angle and hard paper is very close to thin wood and easy to trim to match the pocket outline. Use 8mm length Allen saddle screws vs. the 10mm length that is standard and you may not need a shim at all !
It's a plague brought on by the way TH-cam works. By filling the first couple of minutes with nonsense, it keeps people watching more of the video. The higher % watch time, the YT algorithms consider it a better quality of video. Hence why channel owners do this, so that people watch more of the video and are more likely to be picked up in recommended videos or search results. Personally I turn off if it takes too long to get to the damn point!
Sorry that you didn’t get what you paid for.
Oh wait ... this video is free. Stop whining, you can always skip or quit.
@@ThomasGeist did both, thanks Mr White Knight!
@@Turak_64 well-said.
@@Turak_64 This video was from 2014. Way before any "algorithm" was created and implemented.
Thanks for the very helpful video. I just made a wood shim by slivering off a thin wafer of pine on the table saw, glued it to the neck as you suggested and sanded it in place until the height and angle came out right, sand-test-repeat. It only took about an hour and it made a serious improvement to action and feels quite nice now. The sustain is quite good, actually I think it's better than before since I sanded the pocket and now have very good wood-wood connection. I was also able to raise bridge saddles so now I don't have nasty adjustment screws sticking all the way out (which I always hated).
I just love these podcasts, the tone is right, and it is so rewarding to listen to masters of their art talking on a subject. Very inspiring.
Thanks for the great tip about gluing the shim material to the neck. I kind of ran with that thought. Instead of gluing to the neck, I stapled a thin piece of wood to a squared 4 X 4. That gave me something to hold on to. I then ran it to my belt sander until I thought it was right. The staple heads sanded off but the legs held on till I finished the workpiece. It took a couple tries but it worked perfectly! Thank you so much!
From Leo: Good hardware stores have Birch and Walnut veneer tape, 3/4 inch wide to hide the end grains on cabinet work. It is .020" (0.5mm) thick. Use two if needed. Works great, and inexpensive
I had to shim a guitar once. I didn't have shims but I had a chisel, sandpaper, file, and some titebond II glue. I filled the rear end of the neck pocket with the glue and tilted the guitar just slightly to the angle I thought I needed the shim to be and let the glue dry hard as a rock. Then a little chisling and filing in the pocket to even it all out and it worked perfectly.
Thanks Ben for the tip about gluing wood to the neck to shim it. My Zebra wood kit neck is loose from side to side! and I have to adjust it to fit it to the centreline. The neck is to be glued in place so I shall take your advice.
I make my shims out of old credit cards, sanded to a wedge shape with a belt sander. Trial and error is critical to find the correct angle. several cards can be stacked up when big corrections are needed.
good point..
something I believe I have noticed in shimming some strat guitar necks. Is that if I shim up the neck higher somewhat, and then raise the saddles to retain the same low string action, that the higher shimmed neck seems to bring out a louder acoustic response, ie more resonance out of the guitar. Have you found this to be true ? Thanks
Is there any advantage to making a neck shim out of brass? I happen to have a machine shop and lots of brass shim stock, so it would be simple for me to make it from brass. The neck is shimmed with strips cut from a business card as a test and it's working well, so I know the thickness already.
did you get around to doing that?? i'm very curious about the result
Thanks Ben as always your answers are accompanied by the best reasons. Relieving my "where did I go wrong syndrome". I feel much better now Doc. I can almost unclench my jaw...
Just found some interesting wood that may be good for a shim. Cigar tubes usually have ceder on the inside of the tube. It's very thin. About .010. I rolled a few out.....got to be careful with them. Probably be best to humidify them good before using.
I made it with woodprix !
Thanks so much for the advice! I was really thinking....is it better to add a little extra wood on the bottom of the guitar body, or attach it to the end of the neck and then, give it a shape? You've resolved my dilemma!! Many thanks
Conversely, I happened to have just used masking tape to fix a tele copy without a truss rod. It turned an unresponsive but great-sounding guitar into a responsive and great-sounding guitar. The pressure on those four layers after tightening the screws is such that I can't imagine much loss of tone, transference or sustain. Not verified by anything except my own ears and hands, of course; but the experience of many years playing and tone-chasing, and my highly anal sense of hearing for my own guitars, is not nothing. There were none of the infinitesimal triggers I associate with a negative change in tone or response.
So, everyone - try it. Of course there are better ways to do it - better mainly in terms of permanence, neatness and professionalism - but tape will allow you to test shimming at the very least. Another benefit is that you can screw right through it when refitting the neck, removing the need to use a very narrow, perfectly shaped or drilled shim.
I use playing cards. I'm scared that the tape will get gummy and degrade over time.
I shimmed the neck on a t Style a while back with a tapered shim that I made. Just laying it in there. At the next string change I removed the neck and glued the shim in. It seemed to make a huge difference in tone and tuning stability. Still has me scratching my head.
for those of you who struggle with making shims and dont have a woodshop, try this: keep your tape shim, use a knife to split the tape so its no bigger than a quarter inch, you want as little width as possible with the same height that already works. make sure you are happy with the shimmed action and then take some saran wrap and wrap a single layer around the neck joint, tape on top of the fretboard to keep it out of the way. then you can take some epoxy or JB weld and put a coating in the neck pocket, little heavier near the tape shim so it fills the space and then bolt the neck on but not super tight. The epoxy/JB is harder than the wood so it wont dampen your sustain, but it fills the air space in the pocket and it will essentially glue itself to the saran wrap, not the neck. the reason you dont tighten it down super tight is because some of that glue will get on the screws and you'll need a good twist to break the screws loose. do NOT use watery glue like superglue or you'll fuse the whole thing into a set neck and its bad. if done right, the epoxy pretty much fills the gap and forms an integral shim in the neck pocket and stick to the saran, so the neck is still removable with a light tug. you can leave it together and that's fine but you can also remove the neck and peel out the saran wrap. either way the empty space should be filled with resin harder than the wood and you have a mechanically perfect neck joint with no sustain or tone loss. its a little more work but if you dont have access to woodworking tools this just basically requires a paper plate, tape, saran wrap and something to stirr glue like a pencil or toothpick. now if you really want it to stay, you can just stright-JB/epoxy the neck on and basically you have a set neck guitar but if you mess that up it doesnt come off, so that's a commitment, better to use the saran wrap and if you love it you can always go back and skim-coat it for a set-neck.
I'm digging that idea! I'd even put plastic down in the pocket that way it's not super permanent. It would stick well enough on the sides to stay put but if you needed to get it out, it would just pry out.
When the screws are backed off a half turn while the guitar is tuned to pitch the string tension will increase the important pressure of the wood to wood contact linearly with the direction of the strings. If when the guitar is checked and it has gone a few cents flat , that is an indication that there was a space between the end of the neck and the bridge end of the pocket. The increased contact pressure will improve both tone and sustain as the neck will function more like a set or through neck.
Although soft shims at the back of the pocket may reduce sustain somewhat the most important contact point is the end of the neck and the bridge end of the pocket.
I always do this with every screw on neck build I do and it always sounds better after the procedure.
The screws can be re-tightened and the sustain improvement will remain as long as the string tension is on when the screws are snugged up..
The screw holes in the body should be large enough so that the screws can easily pass through, and only thread into the neck wood to ensure that this linear pressure is NOT on the screws, but purely wood to wood.
I've never questioned why it works, just knew that it did.. thank you for teaching me something today!
@@CrimsonCustomGuitars No charge man. It's refreshing to see a luthier that doesn't profess to knowing it all.
We should all try to learn something new every day.
I fitted a neck to the squire body I bought off ebay.All the strings were touching the frets apart from top and bottom e.
I used the tremolo cover to shim the tremolo saddle , and adjusted all the allen screws to raise the strings.They were now clear but I had fret buzz.
The neck was too tight in the pocket so I cleared all the pocket out and gave it a light sanding.I then orbital sanded the neck that goes in the pocket , not too much tho.
The strings were now miles away from the frets at pos 12 etc.i now adjusted the allens screws lowering them all down.So I went from one extreme to the other just with a little sanding now I have probably got to make a shim like u just explained.it was my first project.
There's a few comments about materials for making the shim so I thought I'd let you know my experience. Different materials can make a difference to sustain - BUT - I found that hard materials such as plastic and metal changed the sound of the pick attack to something very unpleasant to my ears. Stay with wood unless you want ice pick attack to your tone.. It does, however, raise an interesting question about Fender micro tilt systems and what they might be doing to your tone..!
Microtilt system - yes.... I wondered that as well. If the tilt screw is lifting that section of the neck slightly off the pocket then there must be a gap - and therefore less sustain as the neck to body isn't fully in contact.
When i have a badly shaped neck pocket (gouges/needs s shim) i just put bondo in the bottom and wrap the neck in a teflon dam (wax paper works) and press the exact shape into the bondo then let it sit till it dries, perfect every time!!
I file the front edge of the pocket approx 1/16 and use insert bolts for max contact.
I have a Strat clone (ESP body, Warmoth neck) that I shimmed with a nickel. Works like a charm.
Hello Ben, how is the new format working out for you now? Sometimes I think you still look a tad flustered BUT sometimes you actually look, and sound, relatively relaxed. Ben, I worry about you... Cheers, -buddy
I'm looking for how to reglue the block on a vintage Vox acoustic 12 string guitar with a loose neck block with a bolt on neck?
what do you think of using a staple on the inside of body wings where we will not be cutting later( i.e. routing or drilling) to keep the wings from slipping while we clamp/glue? i saw the tip in a video on youtube at
How to Build an Electric Guitar-Video 6-Body Wings pt1
and wondered what you thought.
This neck shim “sustain” argument makes about as much sense as the “screw the pickups to the body” fairytale. Too much time obsessing over minuscule things and not playing. Lol.
Hi ben, any suggestions on cheapish woods too start learning to build with?
A small piece of paper business card in the back of the pocket can’t hurt anything. Not even a mm once it’s smashed down was all I needed. A full stew Mac .025 was way too much. I may try to make it slightly thicker maybe two pieces of Business card still won’t be a mm once smashed down or maybe use the thinnest part of a .025 stew Mac shim. In very back of the neck pocket only behind the screws.
Many guitarists have inserted their favorite, or a handy, guitar pick to shim their guitar neck. Now ... need to find a tonewood pick for a shim ;)
Ben, Interesting comment on the 1/4 turn vs tight bolting. I've seen recommendations for stringing up the guitar, loosen the heel bolts only and then reseat them tight while the string tension is on in order to get the best contact/sustain/tone.
I do that but not super tight. Wood vs steel. Steel wins most the time.
Could you do a podcast about headless bass/guitars and using specialized bridge or simply moving the machine tuners to the bottom of the instrument.
And which is better or easyer
Av Ru good question, I'll cover it in a podcast soon..
I have a Tele that has a good straight neck, correct string height at nut but strings buzz slightly around 5th fret to 12th. I currently have a thin shim in the pocket. What is the difference between that set up & removing the shim in conjunction with lowering the bridge saddles. Will the latter cure the fret buzz?
Alan Howell That was exactly my problem with my strat. But I took out the shim and it didn’t sound better. I loosened the truss rod a quarter turn and put the shim back in and it feels great.
How about sanding down the neck to the correct shape?
That might lower your neck too much. If one end is perfect by size, and you just need to change the angle, a shim is the way to go.
A neck question. Some videos and guitar collectors believe that using a neck rest on the bench when setting up a guitar and leveling frets, the neck bows and gives a false level. Will your guitar neck actually bow under it's own weight with the body on the bench and the neck on a neck brace ?
I think think it could too. I always check adjustments in playing position with string tension if possinble.
It would have been good had you mentioned Stu Mac shims. They are pricey but one does not have to chance screwing their neck up gluing wood to it then wood working. Much easier to play with a few shims of different sizes than woodwork to fit. Just my take on it. Guitar parts are not cheap especially necks. I seem to have a guitar that needs some shim adjustment or nut adjustment, new nut or both. That is why I watched this video. Sorry you missed the mark on this one.
Can i put a strat neck on a jazzmaster?
SeshSSB yes you can
Hi Ben,How about a metal shim?
That would certainly be fine, solid/hard materials transmit the vibrations better and help sustain..
Crimson Custom Guitars that's interesting. how do you know?
BigEdWo experience mainly followed by a bit of science.. hard materials like a good joint transmit vibrations better and lead to increased sustain.. hard wood versus soft wood gives vastly different amounts of sustain in a guitar body and the saem goes here. Now whether you believe that acoustic sustain transmits very well through to the amp etc is another story and remains to be proven/disproven imo. Thanks for watching.
Crimson Custom Guitars thanks ben. love your channel. wish you all the best.
I've used a couple of pieces of black electrical tape to shim the necks of a couple basses I own and for more than 10 years I have had no problems and no difference in tone.
How appalling! Remove yourself from here.
Unknown if my question was seen on the last video since it was buried by my other comments:
I'm about to do a refret on a Steinberger Synapse transcale using stainless steel fretwire. Why is it I see people ruining all sorts of end nippers trying to cut this stuff, when using a small hack saw doesn't seem like it would be much more work? Not to mention more control over how the end of the fret is shaped before beveling.
And also, does phenolic/ebonal/other plastic fingerboard material chip out when removing frets like ebony does or is it usually more forgiving? I'm also thinking conventional wisdom of heating the fret with the soldering iron might not apply due to these synthetic fingerboards being made of thermoset resins which do not melt or become more malleable with heat, I'm also thinking the fret metal is just going to expand and make it more difficult to remove, however the issue of the frets possibly being glued in with CA glue makes me question this. Any tips/tricks?
If I were to follow his recommendation, I'd use just a dot of Elmer's school glue. Only because you not trying to bond the shim on the neck forever, just enough to shape it and install the neck. I'd just want to give myself an out in case I swap parts around FG or whatever reason and I could easily pop it off. I hate when someone beforehand glued the hell out of a nut to where it wont just pop out with a little tap on the side without ruining it or chopping something.
Bam Bam Bigelow!
I have a strat , I prefer single cuts but had to have at least one . anyhow it has the vintage truss rod adjustment. and it is a huge pain in the @%#+! !!! it's straight then under tension it has relief . I adjust to make it as straight as possible but just will not go straight . how can I level the frets with this mess !
Bryan Bernas they are supposed to have a little relief. Look at fender specs
Why Can't you buy a wood shim for a Stratocaster pocket 2mm to nothing at the other end?Would seem a good idea.
Clive Lombari good idea!
Clive Lombari stewmac does sell them precut or as blanks.
"I answer the ones I know" LOL funny!!
I don’t glue the shim. I use double sided tape.
Shoot! So many people being fiddly trying to shape separate shims when it would be better to just glue on the shim and whittle to down as needed, how simple!
"Noo, that's nasty" :), made my day
Just get on with it i just made a neck shim in the time it took to make video.
God i want to like these videos but every single one, you go on and on, its like you are writing a paper for high school and have to hit a certain word amount. This video could have been a couple minutes.
workdaily??"
41k views. 340 likes. Bunch of freeloaders.
too much talking man
Nisal Jayasinghe he has a gift of the gab and he pauses too much when he talks. Unwatchable
maybe if you could speak english....
cranky1964 don't you mean spell English.
No. I meant what I said, but I see you have edited your post and corrected the mistakes.
Good for you.
micro tilt MUST BE INFERIOR!
Way to much pointless off topic boring banter. I reccomend getting right to the point in order to keep the viewers attention, I couldn't even finish the video..
Way too much talking and boring jokes. Please get to the point. We want to learn your great skills at guitar building, not to hear cheap comedy.
Taking advice from a guy who tattooed his head all over...something's wrong here.