Podcast 42 - How to Shim a Strat Neck - masking tape or wood? 

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.

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 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 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!

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'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?

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.

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

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.

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 !

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.

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...

I file the front edge of the pocket approx 1/16 and use insert bolts for max contact.

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.

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.

Hi ben, any suggestions on cheapish woods too start learning to build with?

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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?

I made it with woodprix !

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.

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!!

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 answer the ones I know" LOL funny!!

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.

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.

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 !

I have a Strat clone (ESP body, Warmoth neck) that I shimmed with a nickel. Works like a charm.

"Noo, that's nasty" :), made my day

How about sanding down the neck to the correct shape?

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..!

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

Can i put a strat neck on a jazzmaster?

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.

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.

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 ?

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?

Hi Ben,How about a metal shim?

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!

I don’t glue the shim. I use double sided tape.

Why Can't you buy a wood shim for a Stratocaster pocket 2mm to nothing at the other end?Would seem a good idea.

Just get on with it i just made a neck shim in the time it took to make video.

workdaily??"

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.

41k views. 340 likes. Bunch of freeloaders.

micro tilt MUST BE INFERIOR!

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.

too much talking man

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..

Taking advice from a guy who tattooed his head all over...something's wrong here.

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.