How and Why to Install a Neck Shim on a Fender Bolt On Neck 

If you put a capo on the neck before taking it off it gives you a good insurance policy against tangled strings, saves a little time too.

Simple, effective, efficient, and free. People get their panties in a bunch about gear, but guitars are tools, people... if it works, Rock that sh**. Thanks for the vid!

Just wanna let you know that you helped me fix my guitar! Used an old VERY VERY thin sheet of ply wood. The action is EXTREMELY LOW now, I was already close to the point of giving up on trying to lower it and not knowing why anything I did was working, fret leveling, nut work, bridge height...this fixed it 100%

All mine are shimmed with THE ACE OF SPADES THE ACE OF SPADES!

It's amazing what a simple fix like this can do for a guitar. Getting that neck just right with a shim makes it feel like a whole different player.

You left out the most important part: how do we diagnose that we need a shim, and in which direction?

I recently shimmed my bass's neck with aluminum soda can material and it worked really well--easy to cut with tin snips, can be stacked to form a custom incline by using progressively smaller pieces, transfers vibration across neck joint very effectively, and you can easily drive screws right through it.

Holly crap man , I never got this much interest in guitars at the beginning , but later on (4 years later to be exact) I finally searched on why my guitar makes problems such as this and decided , why not try something like shimming the neck , like I have nothing to lose and it drastically changed the guitar itself ! Amazing ... I never tough something as small as this could change my guitar so much :o Tysm for posting this vid on YT and making my life easier !

Man I feel stupid! In 1971 I sold a '62 strat that I could never get the action right. I had kept it for slide but didn't use it much. A shim! So simple!

I use a piece(or 2) of masking tape on the bottom of the neck. Pro tip; when you are finished leveling frets, tape from 12th fret down and level a little more from 12th fret up(just a little, don't over do it) and you will have amazingly low action with no buzz. 🤘😎

"You never hear the other side. You never hear people saying a cardboard shim ruined their guitar." That's because they've all died of shim poisoning.

2:16 "...because with the weather it's gonna expand and contract..." Yeah, exactly like the rest of the guitar, so that's actually perfect. I don't listen to those cork-sniffers. Very helpful video sir!

This is why Fender made a great choice when they came out with the "Micro-tilt" necks

I've been using a matchbook cover since 1965,on any bolt on neck with great results .No problems or loss of tone! Good video bud.👍🎸

Yes indeed, Mr. Russell. I rebuilt an old Opel carburetor and made all the gaskets from a Frosted Flakes box (worked grrrrreat!). And one great thing about that material in guitar work is that when it's compressed (neck tightened up), it's density is roughly that of hardwood. As pertains to air pockets mentioned in a comment before me, before you tighten it up, smear some of your neck/head glue (I use "Aleene's Original Tacky Glue" on neck/head/fret board and all wood/wood bonds alone) all over except the neck, put one thickness of saran wrap around the neck, put neck/body together, put the screws to it and clean up excess glue after it's tight. Glue dries and no pockets and the bonding of all parts into one will give you best possible sustain. Vibrations will travel through the body/neck joint without stumbling over variances in density, and THAT is what causes sustain loss. And that's a fact, Jack. -David, a.k.a. the ConnMan.

“This is not rocket surgery y’all” im stealing that 😂

Did this just now! Super helpful. Playability has improved a lot. I used a very thin guitar pick. Thanks man! 🤘😎

Take a black Sharpy to the edge of that shim an you will never notice it.

Putting a tiny shim in the neck pocket can drastically improve playability of your guitar. I find that a steeper neck angle on my strat allows me to get the action more even along the entire neck, and the strings are easier to bend and react quicker. It can honestly turn a boring to play guitar into an amazing playing guitar.

I have around 6 high end guitars and my reliced Mexican strat has a neck shim I made from a piece of maple and that guitar is one of the best sounding guitars in my arsenal. Everyone that plays it wants to buy it.If your guitar needs to be shimmed dont hesitate to shim that puppy up.Just make it with a piece of hardwood.

Just the info I was looking for. Thanks, Kennis. You rock! :)

I put the cereal cardboard shim in my guitar and worked great. Thank you!

Neck shims work great especially on ‘70s style Strats or Teles with the Bullet trussrods. I use plastic collar stays that go in shirt collars. They don’t absorb any moisture and remain the same height for as long as you use them

Thank you for this video. I had to shim mine the opposite way on my tele. One little strip of card stock did the trick. Thanks a bunch!!

This whole video and comments is a perfect example of the danger of trying to learn anything important from the internet. If you are reading for anything other than amusement you are in the wrong place. If he uses a capo to set his action he probably is not the guy to teach you how or when to shim your neck. It's a good try and some of it is correct but what can I say, is "some correct" good enough for you. Best advice is watch the Stu Mac video at least they will tell you why you may need to shim, and how to do it right and how to set string height/action right etc. The capo on the first fret is for checking the neck relief not for setting the action.

Without ever watched this video I did a this to one of my guitar to correct neck high and actually changed the whole tone. The resonance is so much rich. I’m planning to do that to the rest of them. The piece I used is .035” approximately. I’m a CNC machinist and sometimes we add shims to heavy parts to be machined so I wasn’t randomly try to do something, actually is a common practice in aerospace industry. Bottom line that is works well

100 dollar bills have an almost supernatural property that makes them by far the best shim material

A shim with business cards, all identical, works well. They are wood pulp/paper and are identical. Generally an electric will need 1-3 shims thickness. I put piece 1 from pocket rear to 1/2 the pocket length and the other 2 pieces 1/2 of the one before. So you get a wedge from rear to front direction. Mark the 1st shim rear curve to match the neck heel... You can punch the screw holes at the rear pocket area or just let the screw points eat through when the neck is re-installed. All the cards need the curved rear to be flush to the back edge of the pocket. His problem to solve is 1 in 100 at most.... nearly every shim job is to RAISE the rear of the neck heel barely.

I am thinking about doing this on my Tele. Yeah it’s simple and I can understand the geometry. Good video Kennis.

Thanks for the advice that was a great video. I received a used 90’s Squier Bullet Strat from a relative and the neck pocket was filled with paint from the factory. So I sanded it out but I think I did an uneven job. So I put a shim made out of sandpaper because you can choose the thickness and it works great now.

Its give me a idea to rescue my old guitar. Thank you for sharing.🤔😊

the luthier I learned from taught me to use sandpaper shims..that's what I've always done with great results

Outstanding! I did a build and messed up a little and sanded a bit too much in the neck pocket. Neck was too low and even with the bridge as low as it would go, the action was still too high. I started researching shims and even considered buying a new neck. However, I took your advice and put some cardboard in the pocket and it’s been working like a charm! Thanks for sharing. This saved me money and I love these simple solutions!

Love the way to strip out the heads of the neck screws. The reason you use a screw driver for the last couple of turns is so that you dont mess up the heads

I thinned down a popsicle stick just because it was wood against wood . Maybe not a noticeable difference but it made me feel better .

Hi Kennis, Nice video and great info...I enjoyed it and learned some useful information. I'll have to start tuning into your channel now that I know about it. Hope the Tele project turned out well with the action... Phil Jersey Shore Area

Thanks so much - I was just gonna bring in to the local shop, but you saved me!

Good tutorial on shimming but there's a problem with that tele: the neck screws should NOT grab threads in the body, they should just slip right through the body and ONLY thread into the neck. For some reason, I've only seen this on MIM Fenders; not MIA, MIJ or Squiers. The way it is now prevents the screws from pulling the neck properly into the pocket. This is easily fixed by drilling out the body holes with a larger bit.

I've been a tech for almost 20yrs and I agree with neck shims. I like to use a thin piece of zebra wood veneer(no more than .030" thick). In a pinch you could use cardboard, I've used string packs as solution in the past(D'addario works great)

One of the most expensive and time consuming and inevitable repairs a guitar will ever need is a neck reset or replacement. Leo foresaw this and designed it into every guitar so anyone can do it without a luthier

Thanks for sharing this Ken, i have 3 electrics and thought wtf why the Buzz on them all!? almost was about to sell and go bck to acoustic till i saw this and noticed all 3 have tilt and need shimming! great video man glad i saw this..cheers

Nice demo. Two notes: 1. If you don't want to see the shim on a black guitar, use a Sharpie to blacken the exposed edge. 2. Tone... The WORST tone is a guitar that isn't played because of a crappy action. With Fenders and most bolt-on necks I would guesstimate the interface of the neck and body accounts for at most 5% of the tone. Why? Because the screws and screw plate clamping the two pieces tightly together transfers vibration quite effectively. If one uses harder shims like plastic or soft metal, vibration can often be transferred better than with cardboard. But now you are taking that 5% and dissecting it even more. I prefer the simplicity of the StewMac hardwood shims as they can be had in various angles, and are quick and effective. Shim it and PLAY it!!

I have this exact guitar (in sunburst) with the exact same problem. I'm going to try this. Thanks!

Great video! Its probably not nessessary but I shimmed my Kramer using a business card but I cut it a little longer in the pocket then ripped a small layer off part way back so the card got thinner near the edge to reduce the gap. Worked great!

Oh man! This is great!!

Thank you this is what I was looking for👍👍😊😊🎸🎸! I have a Jackson that I repaired. I don't like the floating tremolo. A personal preference. I do like my Jackson alot to play Godsmack, etc. Drop D or C with heavy strings, ugh couldn't get the strings right. Thank you for sharing. Teaching myself to be a Luthier. To take care of my guitars and to work on some to pay forward! Really thanks. 🤘🤘 Let's keep on rockin in the Free World!

Hit the outside edges of the cardboard shim with a black magic marker (or a color that most closely matches your guitar body) and your cardboard shim will magically disappear!

I made a makeshift shim for a baritone neck conversion project i just completed. The reveal was extremely high and not only that, the neck heel itself was just slightly angled downward. I had to make a relatively extreme Shim to deal with it. But now i have a functioning baritone.

This video just helped me. Literally this morning I was getting frustrated with a hardtail strat. Just used a thin piece of card and it has made it so much better. I used a small piece of card that I cut from genuine fender packaging too if that helps haha! Many thanks.

You forgot to use a black felt marker on the edge of your shim. It will really help to make it invisible.

Thanks a bunch, just to shim up the inside two bolts of a strat partscaster in order to accommodate a new tremolo that was thicker than the previous one. USPS boxes side fold flaps work well, too.

If someone is trying to learn from this it needs to be said that he actually shimmed this neck backwards. That’s why his action read higher lol. If your bridge is bottomed out and you need the action to be lower, you want to lower the headstock end by placing the shim at the base of the pocket. The end nearest the bridge.

Stew-Mac makes ready-made wood shims now so you don't need to use cardboard anymore. Shim or not, the best path to better tone is slightly higher action. The .lowest possible action will surely prevent the strings form ringing out as well as they might, open or fretted just enough to prevent the best tone that can be gotten. I'm not talking about high action, just not the absolute lowest possible action. My set-up method is to lower the action to where some notes are beginning to buzz a little, then gradually raise it until all notes ring out clearly. At this point the action is still pretty low, but the guitar is playing and responding as it should. A short story on point: A friend had a1939 non-cutaway Gibson L-5 acoustic archtop that played and sounded like a dream. I had played a few guitars of this kind, but this one responded to every slight, subtle touch of the player and rang out with a beautiful sound. It was a well known and admired guitar amongst the local musicians I knew. I asked my friend to let me borrow the guitar for a few days. I was curious to see if I could discover what made it so good. I gave it a very close inspection, played it for a while and nothing stood out in particular except that the sound was glorious. It was just a better than very nice 1939 L-5 non-cutaway. Then, in a short time the "secret" was revealed. It had been hiding in plain sight. The action was set higher than is found on most Gibson archtops. It was still easy to play, partially because my friend strung it with an .011 set, which added to the good sound IMO, but the action was distinctly higher than usual. That was it, along, of course, with it being an excellent example from that era. I learned a lot from that and I pass it on to you all.

thanks very much I just sorted my Frankin-strat out

Very Helpful thanks!!

I've used picks for shims, masking tape and card. They all work fine.

Thank you Konan O’Brian

take a neck off a fender and run a string from the saddle across the pickups onto a peg in a vise. so now you need to understand there is no wood underneath the string once it passes over the body. hit the string and it will vibrate and have sustain, of course it will only be one note unless using a slide but the concept is to help people understand the bridge and pickups are the workhorse of tone.

Nice video! Thanks!

I tried to Shim my Les Paul, but once I got the neck from the body and Shim in place I couldn't find the screws any advice?

If you use 1 or 2 oversized pieces of cereal box, or very thin maple etc. and superglue piece(s) to the neck heel using thin superglue to make it an integral part of the neck and NO GAPS under the heel in the pocket. (For tone purists who swear shimming loses tone). Cut cardboard even with heel shape and sand edges. Sand the now shimmed heel with a hard sanding block to keep a flat surface checking often for fit and angle. Remember to drill screw holes out through the shim. Alternative is to sand the heel itself if you have adjustment room in the bridge saddles to compensate for the minor loss of height of the neck in the pocket.

pull the other one it's got bells on it. sure does have that important knack for making a simple job look hard and drawn out. would love to see how you boil an egg. first gather some fresh rained H2O...🙄👉🥚🤪👍

Awesome thank you for your advice appreciate 🙌✅💯💯✅🙌

I use a normal masking tape as a shim. By layering the tape with different lengths, I can taper the 'shim' to suit the guitar. I own more than a dozen guitars, and thankfully only one needs shimming - and that happens to be my main go-to guitar.

I got a little way into this and asked myself - why am I taking advice from a guy who is using his pocket knife to work on a guitar neck? Then I said heck with it and finished watching.

The idea of using a knife to unscrew the neck is revolutionary. I'll try shimming the neck with my worn out shorts after I use my teeth to unscrew the neck bolts.

I see a lot of guitar maintenance videos these days with people using multi tools. I think I’d feel more comfortable handing my guitar to someone who used proper tools...

I normally use blue painters tape in layers. Gives a good tone.

I just had a Tele set up and they dropped the action from the 3/64" I had it set at to 2/64" and you couldn't bend the E, B, or G at all from around the 10th fret up without it bottoming out. I left it and told them to fix it. Got a phone call the next day saying the neck was "warped", and it had "raised frets", and was going to need "a lot of work" to make it playable, at the very least was going to need those frets sanded down for those "high spots". They insisted the neck was "warped" and was "really bad". It totally pissed me off, as I knew there was nothing wrong with the neck, so I told em not to touch it and I'd be there within a half hour or so. I brought my pocket ruler with me when I went back and sure enough, they'd dropped the action down, and yeah, that 1/64th made all the difference between every note bottoming out when you bent it anywhere above that 10th fret or so, and bending just fine and singing with nice sustain when I brought it back to where I had it originally. So, the guitar was just fine after I got it home and tinkered with it for about 10 minutes. But the whole experience got me to thinking if I did want to have the action just a little lower was I really going to need to pay someone $100+ to level and crown those frets to get a nice even drop-off to accommodate a slightly lower action where I could still bend without anything bottoming out...??? It's been nagging at me for the past week or so, coming to mind every time I pick up the guitar, which is usually a few times a day. Thankfully, I just happened to come a cross this video, and found out how simple the solution really is... a bit of a shim is all that's needed, then adjust the action slightly lower, with the shim naturally creating the drop-off with no loss of metal from the frets at all... This video also finally solved a long-standing mystery for me, as years ago a very good luthier I used to have work on my guitars fixed one of my guitars and made it play wonderfully afterward. When I asked if it had taken much work to make it play like that, he told me no, actually all that it needed was just the slightest shim in the neck. It didn't need anything else done to it, he said, and it played like a dream after he'd worked on it. I didn't understand at the time how a shim worked, and always wondered about how it made such a difference. Finally, after all these years, thanks to your video I now understand what he did and why it worked so well (as well as why the repair only cost $25... ;-) Looking forward to lowering the action on the tele now, and listening to my baby sing...! (3/64" is fine, but my favorite playing guitar neck is set at 2/64ths, so I figure why not try it now that I know the trick, and see...? ;-)

To me flat shims using cereal box cardboard/post-it note paper/printer paper, is 100% fine for 4 string bass/7 string guitars or smaller instruments. My ripoff Stratocaster has a Corn Pops shim :D For angled shims I prefer to use wood-backed cabinet strips/veneers. Easier to control when sanding for that .5~.7 degree angle. (For my 5 string jazz bass I used a piece of hardwood veneer maple. The tension of 5 string bass makes me personally feel more comfortable with a even more dense material under there. I never tried just simple piece Post-it note paper with a bass because I haven't run out of that wood veneer yet. $17 at Menards for Non Paper-backed. But I bet a cereal-box flat shim would be fine even on those Davie504 meme-style 15 string bass guitars too, once that stuff compresses, it's just solid.)

Thanks for the video - any idea or thoughts about how to determine the right angle? I have a shim under the neck to compensate but now my bridge is really high and I think it's too high..but how to measure, verify that? thanks in advance!

brilliant sir

Extra points for having scissors in your pocket knife and using it. My Swiss Army and Wenger both have scissors and I don’t see myself not having them ever again in my multi tool knife.

I prefer old gift cards or hotel room card keys. There are no embossed or raised numbers on them like a credit card to mess with and you can always taper them with a belt sander if need be. A paper punch will make the holes for the screws. Once the neck is shimmed and set,...try thus! Tune the guitar to pitch and loosen the neck screws a full turn then re-tighten them.This will pull the neck into the pocket with the string tension and improve sustain and tone. .If you need to re-tune, it moved a lot. Eight out of ten times you will hear a difference immediately.

When you will take the capo off your strings will be at 7/64. You don't use a capo to setup or measure strings action.

What you can do is take a couple of cards from a deck of cards ( like for poker) they are stiff, thin and made out of paper = is made out of wood. If you need the shim thinner in one end you cut one card in half place it on top of the other in the neck pocket so you get a small nice drop of the inclination of the neck down towards the headstock

I want to point out (if someone already hasn't) winding your strings around the tuning peg when you have Locking Tuners, defeats the purpose of locking tuners. You only use as much string as you need for your tuning. Lock it, cut it, and tune it. The string should only really go half way around the peg, it shouldn't wrap around itself. Just a fun tip

yeah man ,done the same thing on my parts caster ,But on the back of the pocket, used 250 grit sand paper ,not that that matters ,But worked good ,my action is bout half of mil, lower at the last fret ,its now bout a mil. and a half all the way up the neck.

I use laminate sheets usually . Recently I had curly maple . Works fine but u have to wet it sometimes so it doesn't crack when cutting it out .

Hey man appreciate your video you save my more expensive and love strat to sell for give me the solution thanks a lot appreciate your video God bless you 🙏

thanks man!

Draw a line on your workbench or a long piece of paper, and lightly draw a parallel line 1/8" above that. Pick one end to represent your saddles and the other for your nut. Doesn't really matter how long you make this layout, roughly as long as your guitar or bass. Now, you can easily visualize the neck (bottom line) and it relationship with the string (top line). You can see how the saddle adjustment, nut, and neck relief work together on this one layout. Neck shims too. After a while you will automatically visualize these relationships without a diagram.

Thank you,I took out 4 screws just to see what was under them, the neck fell off with a big chunk of cardboard... Then I came here.

The shim looked longer on one edge/side than the other too. I made a flat/level shim, the neck heel was too low in the neck pocket, but the angle was perfect. It's a 2005 Squier Bullet SSS HT, so it had a top loader HT bridge, not a string thru body. And to get lower action, the E saddles were slammed to the bridge plate and the saddle post screws stuck out the top of those saddles. By raising the neck the saddles are level now with the proper break angle to the saddles. The shim material I used was a plastic backing on a free hardwood flooring sample from Home Depot. Took awhile to shape it, but I needed to elevate the heel of the neck almost 1/16 of an inch, probably closer to 1/20 of an inch in there. I wanted the shim to last forever (my lifetime).

beauty! woiked like a charm...

Suppose one is building from a crummy kit and the neck pocket fit is loose, would this method work OK for side shimming or are there other things to consider? Also, on the shim you did, the bottom of the neck won't make contact all the way from front to back. Does that matter? If it does, could you make the cardboard longer, and then taper the shim from to back (before installing it) through the judicious use of sandpaper?

Power tools, my biggest pet peeve on working with guitars

Thanks for the bed. Just changed the neck on a Strat and the strings are touching the front board. Do you think this will do the trick, or this combined with perhaps having to slightly shave down the underbelly of the neck which connects into the guitar body?

I use saxophone reeds (the tips. about the last 1/2"). Woody material, thin and slightly graduated. I've had real good luck with it.

Anything soft will affect the surface area and change the sound to some degree but I'm about to use it cause I don't have a real wood shim.

Personally I've found that if you've had the neck loose, it doesn't matter how you tighten the bolts 1st time. Tune up, loosen the bolts a quarter to a half turn, and re-tighten them in a crosswise pattern like the nuts of your wheels. Found that this really sets the neck best. Of course you gotta re-tune at the end.

Kennis, I would think shimming the bottom pocket end would kick the neck back more. How does this shimming at the other end near the outer body allow lower action?Are you putting a back bow in the neck and lowering the bridge? Very curious. Got my attention

Would adding a shim make it so you don't have to overtighten your trust rod? I have a Squiers VM70s that if I tighten the truss way over what it's supposed to be the neck is fine,if I listen it the body end frets are way high

What do you think of the screws going through the body just enough where the screw does not screw into the body, but passes through straight to the neck that would be a better lock up wouldn’t it now if you drill the body, it has to be just a hair bigger than the screw has to be tight

You put capo on first fret, press down on last fret and measure the neck relief at 8th fret. You should be able to put a dime (I think) between the fret and string. Many times you have to shim the neck to get to the action you require as messing with a truss rod is only half way right.

I've always wanted to know how or if neck shimming is needed!

did you hand tighten or just just drill? what was your setting on the drill to prevent over tightening?

Putting a capo at the first fret is for setting the relief truss rod. He’s getting a weird reading if he is measuring the action while the capo is on.

Hey man great video I picked up a telecaster hwy 1 2003 I really like but something was off. I can do basic intonation set up etc. Anyway I took neck off this morning cleaned off factory sticker from under neck UPC code or something made a shim out of a cereal box lid put it on the heel side because my saddles were lower than other teles I had action was okay but could be better. Installed shin re set up and man now it's a great guitar. Seems like it got louder unplugged I noticed that right away. Maybe a combination of saddles being raised higher and lower action??? Anyway tks

The material of the shim only matters in the area of stability. If it compacts over time it will need to be added to later. If it swells you will need to thin it. I think it is a good idea to put a finish on the shim to slow the movement of water.