Have you tried it? It's easy and virtually free so there's no real impediments to trying it. You can always try something else if it doesn't work in your case.
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Shims: The lazy mans fix??
- Thread starter Kunekune
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Have you tried it? It's easy and virtually free so there's no real impediments to trying it. You can always try something else if it doesn't work in your case.
I not convinced a shim will cause a ski jump. It appears to me to be more a function of the characteristics of the wood in the heel and fingerboard and the profile of the neck where the heel transitions into the shaft of the neck.
I can't believe that a troll post about a common, readily accepted practice has lasted 10 pages.
Shim advice.
The best material to use for a Shim is mesh drywall sanding paper. It will bite into the wood ever so slightly. It will not shift.
Works great.
The best material to use for a Shim is mesh drywall sanding paper. It will bite into the wood ever so slightly. It will not shift.
Works great.
As usual, some pics would help. Secondly, how wide is your shim? I'm thinking a w-i-d-e-r shim would maybe remedy the tone you say it's "sucking outta the bass". Common sense tells me a w-i-d-e-r shim equals more wood in contact with the neck in the neck pocket. I'm no Carl Thompson, or Vinny Fodera, but, common sense seems to be right most of the time. Just my 2 cents......
We might have been talking about two different things when referring to "ski-jump", sounds like.
I'm talking about an unwanted warp in the fingerboard when I use the term - a shim is an orthogonal treatment for that problem.
But for correcting a tilt or adjusting the height of the board compared to the rest of the bass, there shimming is an applicable fix.
Like I said, I have shims on both my bolt-neck basses now to correct too-low fingerboards on both. My jazz bass is a defret project and required a full-pocket shim to get the fingerboard back up to a usable height. It didn't require any further adjustment tho since the neck alignment was already fine. So it's just a flat shim. My L2K is sitting on the neck jig right now waiting on parts and tools. That job will be to finally level the fingerboard which was goofed up from new. I'm also going to flatten the radius out to 9.5". It has a shim in it for the same reason as the jazz, the fingerboard has always been too low on it from the start. And after reradiusing and levelling, enough wood might come off to lower it even more. So the shim.....
So yes I'm definitely a shim user (but only for applicable fixes).
LS
We aren't...give it a try next time you have one, it couldn't hurt.
Soon, I may try it on a friend's Telecaster guitar that he says is a bit "jumpy"
If indeed you _are_ referring to an unwanted relief in the neck:
- yes it could hurt. Chasing a problem with the wrong fix is not a good use of time and effort. It can also lead to expensive additional damage on top of what's already wrong with the guitar/bass.
- it's the wrong fix, regardless of what you think (simply asserting over and over that it's a proper fix doesn't make it true).
- if you do think this is a correct fix for a warped fingerboard, the likelihood is very high that you've learnt other aspects of guitar maint/repair incorrectly as well. So we can't trust other items you might suggest about correcting problems because of that and we can simply disregard them.
If I knew who your friend was, I would caution them to not give you any money for your work. And for him/her to take it to someone who does know what they're doing. I just hope the guitar survives the ordeal and eventually gets fixed correctly.
LS
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