To shim or not to shim?

Artdroid · #1 04-17-2007, 07:31 AM

Recently I swapped out a Badass II Bridge onto my Fernandes Gravity 4x bass. Love the increased sustain and such from it as I expected.

What I had not planned on however is that the Badass cannot be lowered as low as the stock bridge on the Fernandes which leaves my string height about 3/16th higher or so than it was previously. The Badass is dropped down as low as they possibly can go.

So... I'm assuming that I have few options here to gain back that string height. I was wondering if shimming the neck next to the Neck pickup is a possibility to gain some height there and an improved angle?

Thoughts?

Artdroid · #2 04-17-2007, 08:36 AM

Excellent.
Just wanted to see if my thought on correcting the problem made sense to anyone else.

Should I be concerned about the neck not having as much contact with the bass body after shimming? Will that effect the overall tone or sound of the bass?

I'm fine with disassembly, assembly. Been doing all that for years since I started playing bass about 29 years ago.

Learning to become a decent Solderer is my current bane now that i've finally jumped into learning that aspect of working with my gear. Main difference is that I now can have some things I don't have to worry about being gig-worthy all the time and can fiddle with.

Pilgrim · #3 04-17-2007, 08:47 AM

Shim at the bottom of the pocket and you will be OK. You won't hear any difference in sound. One trick for shimming is to use layers of masking tape - you can fine-tune if needed. Usually a biz card either single layer or folded over is about right.

Artdroid · #4 04-17-2007, 08:50 AM

Will do and thanks for the advice.

Likely won't get to try this until Wednesday evening. Tuesday evenings are tied up for me.

Artdroid · #5 04-18-2007, 02:46 PM

Took an initial stab at this last night.

LoL. First attempt I put way to much under the neck. Heh, strings were flat against neck and couldn't even raise the BA Bridge enough to make it playable.

Reduced it to about a third and things are much better. Bridge is raised about 1/16 or more for each string. Needed some additional neck relief, so I gave it -1/4 turn and am letting it settle in for a day or so.

Seems to play as good as ever.