Neck joint on Epi Thunderbird

[Fuzzbox]

Hi everyone,

I recently bought an Epiphone T'bird from eBay, after jonesin' for one for years.

It's in pretty good condition, except for the ridiculously high action. The bridge and pickups were set very high, which I can easily fix, but the neck joint is what I'm concerned about.

Where the fretboard overhangs the body, there is a space of about 3mm between the 'board and body. Having taken the neck off and removed a shim that was in there, I've done some measuring and found that the neck pocket is about 2mm too shallow to hold the neck, so the fretboard will never sit flush to the body.

This is the first T'bird I've owned - in fact, the first I've ever played as my local shops don't stock them - so I don't know if this is usual. If it's just a design feature of the Epi 'Bird, then I suppose I'll have to live with it. However, if possible I'd be keen to sand out the neck pocket so that the neck fits perfectly, and the fretboard lies flat to the body.

So, any Epi T'bird players out there who can shed some light on this, please?

[dave_p]

its supposed to be like that
and put that shim back, the neck is supposed to be angled back a bit. this helps to get the low action.

[Pilgrim]

The shim lowers the action. You need more, not less.

Do a search on TB for "shim my bass" and you'll get all the info you need.

[T-Bird]

Hi.

The gap between the lip and the body is perfectly normal. At least that's been the case in every Epi T-Bird I've seen.

The problem/feature I found out when leveling the neck pocket and the heel of the neck on mine, was that both surfaces are uneven. There's only about 50% contact area if even that.

My result was to slap both the body and the neck onto the milling machine table and to level them. To my ear the sustain is now much better and the consistency between the volume of notes as well.







Regards
Sam