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Calculating Neck Shim Angle
- Thread starter Chris Chong
- Start date
Something is not quite right here, as far as I can tell...
Wouldn't a greater angle shim give a less steep string angle, resulting in lower action over 12th fret?
So a 0.5 degree shim should give a lower action than a .25 degree shim.
Wouldn't a greater angle shim give a less steep string angle, resulting in lower action over 12th fret?
So a 0.5 degree shim should give a lower action than a .25 degree shim.
A
The 0.25degree can reduce string height by 3/64.
Therefore the 0.5deg result in a lower string height.
A 0.5degree can reduce the 12fret string height by 2/32 (or 4/64).
The 0.25degree can reduce string height by 3/64.
Therefore the 0.5deg result in a lower string height.
Ah, I just misinterpreted your illustration.
As much as I love math, I could just put one or two pieces of old business card in there and be done.
This precisely.
With the time spent doing the math, waiting for the order, and working to make the money to pay StewMac for the shims, you could get some playing cards and achieve the same thing a hundred times over.
Trial and error is going to be the quickest and easiest way to figure out what you need in there, pretty much anything will work I wouldn't worry about it being ultra precise.
As a dedicated humanities major (all the way through PhD) the calculations are a bit beyond my skill set (no beer was involved) but I admire the work and find the results quite interesting!
Now can anyone calculate the change caused by one paper business card, made of of standard card stock, covering 50% of the neck pocket area?
Now can anyone calculate the change caused by one paper business card, made of of standard card stock, covering 50% of the neck pocket area?
I think that's interesting but ultimately it's a matter of improving the playability of the instrument. What works best will vary. I've done this more times than I remember and each one was a little different. My experience has been that there are no "cookie cutter" solutions.
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As a dedicated humanities major (all the way through PhD) the calculations are a bit beyond my skill set (no beer was involved) but I admire the work and find the results quite interesting!
Now can anyone calculate the change caused by one paper business card, made of of standard card stock, covering 50% of the neck pocket area?
This.
That's the beauty of using card stock: no need to waste time on calculations. Just get a screwdriver and spend a few minutes; you'll find out whether you need to add more or less quite quickly, OP.
I adjusted the shim height 5 times and then stretched the neck for 2 weeks in a vise and then stacked the width of 4 or 5 business cards . And now the neck plays perfectly.............see how easy that was . 
4 hairs. Brown ones.As a dedicated humanities major (all the way through PhD) the calculations are a bit beyond my skill set (no beer was involved) but I admire the work and find the results quite interesting!
Now can anyone calculate the change caused by one paper business card, made of of standard card stock, covering 50% of the neck pocket area?
I doubt that the Fender factory (and others) do any math when they throw a piece of card stock or sandpaper in the neck pocket.
WOW! That's a whole lotta math and science you've got going there. For whatever it's worth ... I've put together quite a few FSOs (Fender Shaped Objects) P and J basses over the years as well as swapped necks between my basses and have found that a business card shim works perfectly for me 90% of the time.
I can't get into the math of it, but all necks and fretboards are not milled-straightedge flat and particularly in some bolt-on neck basses there may be heel lift, and perhaps the presence of uneven frets. I'm not saying don't fix heel lift or uneven frets, and I say certainly fix those things if you can, but 100% reliable results with something that is wood... may not be applicable every time even to that one piece of wood, let alone for other instruments. A scientific method is GREAT. Don't get me wrong. And a little trial-and-error by playing and feeling isn't a bad thing either. Thanks for the deep dive on this one.
The one decent description for a less math-y process I’ve seen is in the book “Build Your Own Guitar” by the unfortunately named Melvyn Hiscock, applied to a neck-through bass. I’ll have to re-read it for comparison. I draw my bass builds in Autocad, so I can model what’s going on using the parts on hand, so I could easily draw the neck as a curved line to simulate a bit of relief. With neck through, you have to get this right, bolt on is just trial and error. I’ve built mostly Ric clones so far, with raised fingerboards above the plane of the body, so I haven’t had to add neck tilt yet.
My '63 P had a small fibrous shim in the neck pocket about 1/4" wide by 1" long and no more than 1/16" thick. It might have been put in the pocket when the neck was replaced in 1972 or so. Definitely not an attempt to provide the maximum possible contact between neck and body.
