The Build Comes To A Stop

[nashsnazzy]

Hello all,
My Jazz Bass build is having a major issue and I seek your wisdom. It looks like the neck is either too high in the body pocket or perhaps at an incorrect angle. Using a traditional style bridge I have to bottom out the saddle adjustment in order to get close to a standard setup. I tried a Hipshot bridge tonight and I lost the saddle screws on a saddle when I tried to elevate it enough to clear the frets. How do I figure out the following?

1. Is the neck too thick?
2. Is the body's neck pocket not routed deep enough?
3. Is the neck or body pocket machined at an incorrect angle?

This build has required that I learn a lot along the way and I've taken all of my mistakes in stride. This particular issue though has really frustrated me because I assumed that a genuine Fender neck and body would work well together. Any advice you can provide would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[bholder]

I've had that happen and resolved with some shims, but subbed to find out what the experts say...

 

[Bent77]

Any chance you can get some photos of the neck in the pocket, with a small machinist ruler? Some dimensions and pictures may help us

 

[nashsnazzy]

Any chance you can get some photos of the neck in the pocket, with a small machinist ruler? Some dimensions and pictures may help us

Bent77, thank you for the excellent suggestion. Here is the photo of the neck in the pocket.

 

[Bent77]

While I can’t read the numbers, the neck looks to be sitting up quite a bit from the body

 

[dwizum]

Fender specs are pretty straightforward.

The neck pocket should be flat (parallel with the face of the body) and 5/8" deep.

The neck heel should be flat (parallel with the fretboard surface). The heel should be 3/4" thick. This results in the glue line between the fretboard and the neck being 1/8" above the surface of the body. The fretboard, measured at the center of the end of the heel, should be 1/4" thick. This results in the top center of the fretboard being 3/8" above the face of the body.

(Since the fretboard is radiused, it's important to measure at the center - the highest point. Not at the side, as you're showing in your photo. The easiest way to do this is to measure right at the heel end of the neck, in the center.)

These specs, plus typical fretwire crown heights, plus typical string action heights, will put your bridge saddles about in the middle of their adjustment range.

It sounds like you can't get the saddles high enough to get the strings up off the fretboard. That could be caused by many different things, but they're all easy to check for - you just need to compare your instrument to those basic specs, if you want to know the root cause for the problem. Then, you can fix the root cause. Or, you can take the easy way out, and just use a reverse shim (thicker towards the headstock end of the pocket) which points the fretboard surface "down" relative to the bridge, and will get you back in range for the bridge saddles.

 

[dwizum]

In your photo it looks like a one piece neck, so you can ignore the comments about glue line and fretboard thickness, and just check that the heel is parallel to the fretboard and the neck, bottom to top center of the fretboard, is 1" thick. That'll put the top center of the fretboard 3/8" above the body (assuming the pocket is correct) as mentioned.

 

[tpaul]

Your neck appears to be sitting a little high. For comparison, here's a picture of my one-piece neck - you can see the side dot sits about equidistant from the top of the fretboard and the top of the pickguard. Also take a look at my bridge saddles, they are at the midpoint of vertical adjustment range and the action is low without buzzing.

 

[skycruiser]

If your saddles are too low, either raising the neck or tilting it back slightly will fix it. I have had good luck making a tilt back or forward "shim" out of layers of aluminum tape. It will compress and flatten, and you can vary the layers to adjust the thickness so that it behaves like an angled shim. It probably won't take much, and in your case you need to put it under the heel end of the neck.

You can also buy wood shims in a range of angles, I think 0.25, 0.5 and 1 degree are available.

Tilting will give you a larger saddle height impact with less change in the heel height. For example, if you want to raise the saddle height by 1/4", with a straight shim you obviously need a 1/4" thick shim. But you can get that same saddle height change with a 1 degree shim, and it will only be 0.0625" thick at the heel. (And another nice thing, the 1 degree shim will be almost invisible, whereas a 1/4" shim will be glaringly obvious when you look at the neck joint).

 

[Beej]

I'm with @dwizum ... you need to make some critical measurements to see what's off and where. I'd take the neck off the body and measure the heel in the middle of the neck to confirm this is 1" from the bottom of the heel to the top of the crown of the fretboard (not counting the fret). These are critical, so 1 1/32" is not the same as 1" (of course). As said above, the neck pocket should be exactly 5/8" deep. It should be flat and parallel to the face of the body, so you should be able to measure 5/8" all the way around the pocket.

Once you've measured those, you should be able to tell where the issue lies. If the pocket is correct and the neck is too thick, then you can sand the heel a little to thin the neck down. If the pocket is not deep enough and the neck is correct - this can also be fixed by sanding the heel a little to thin it, but it will permanently impact how the neck sits on another Fender body.

 

[Arie X]

frankly, you need a decent straight edge. you can measure pocket depth and tenon thickness all day long but what matters is how the fret plane is presented to the saddles. once you get a picture of what is going on here, adjustments can be made.

 

[nashsnazzy]

Bent77, thank you for the excellent suggestion. Here is the photo of the neck in the pocket. View attachment 4466607

Maybe you can zoom in when you click the thumbnail? The ruler reads 11/32" at the top of the neck.

 

[dwizum]

11/32" from the top of the pickguard to the side of the fretboard is way too high. Either your neck is too thick or your pocket is not deep enough. You're probably off by 1/8" or more, but it's hard to say based on the spot you're measuring. You really should be measuring without the pickguard in place, and checking against the center of the heel, not the side of the neck. Checking the side of the neck means you're including the radius of the fretboard in the measurement, which you don't want to do. Measuring from the top of the pickguard means you're taking your pickguard thickness into account, which you also don't want to do.

But either way, this measurement is just confirming what we already know - something is wrong. You'll need to take the neck off and check the thickness of the neck, the depth of the pocket, and the trueness of the heel and pocket to know where the actual problem is.

 

[nashsnazzy]

Thank you all for helping me out. This community is very encouraging.

I measured the thickness of the neck and it is right on 1". This was measured with a caliper and double checked with the machinist ruler.

The neck pocket though, different story, I measured it multiple times and I keep coming up with 17/32". 5/8 inches, the recommended depth, would be 20/32". The CNC or jig in the Fender plant in Mexico must be off.

I'd really prefer to fix the neck pocket but I believe that is beyond my scope of expertise. Would a 1 degree shim do here? Also, is there someone that I could mail this to that would be able to fix the neck pocket?
Thanks

 

[dwizum]

Fixing the neck pocket is easier than it sounds. You can take the pickguard off and just run a router in the pocket with a pattern bit that has a top mounted bearing. The bearing follows the wall of the existing pocket and cuts the exact shape of the pocket, to the depth you set. If you were to ship the body to someone, it would take longer to get the body out of the box, and box it back up after the repair, than it would to do the repair.

Of course if you're not comfortable with a router, that's probably not super helpful! Any competent repair shop should be able to solve this. For a difference this big, I would have a strong personal preference on fixing the pocket, vs using a shim, since the overall geometry of the bass will be a little off even if you get the neck working OK - the string height above the body will be higher than typical, which means you'll have to raise pickups higher and perhaps adjust your playing style - although some people probably won't even notice the difference, or may like the taller height.

 

[tpaul]

Alternately, you could shim the bridge (and/or raise the saddles with longer elevation screws) and raise the pickups.

Fixing the neck pocket depth is the right way to address this but if you can't do that you might be able to make up the difference other ways.

 

[skycruiser]

I misread the first post. I saw "bottom out" and thought the saddles had to be set to the lowest point.
I previously posted about your exact problem and showed how I dealt with it.
Looking for help to correct high saddles - neck geometry

Testing a shim like this takes takes little time and might be an easy middle course. I was happy with the results in my case. I adjusted the shim a couple of times but it was very easy to add or remove layers of tape on the shim.

 

[SixtyCycleHum]

This is a great thread. Not because our guy is having issues with his neck pocket, but because of the knowledge on show in the replies.

 

[nashsnazzy]

Fixing the neck pocket is easier than it sounds. You can take the pickguard off and just run a router in the pocket with a pattern bit that has a top mounted bearing. The bearing follows the wall of the existing pocket and cuts the exact shape of the pocket, to the depth you set. If you were to ship the body to someone, it would take longer to get the body out of the box, and box it back up after the repair, than it would to do the repair.

Of course if you're not comfortable with a router, that's probably not super helpful! Any competent repair shop should be able to solve this. For a difference this big, I would have a strong personal preference on fixing the pocket, vs using a shim, since the overall geometry of the bass will be a little off even if you get the neck working OK - the string height above the body will be higher than typical, which means you'll have to raise pickups higher and perhaps adjust your playing style - although some people probably won't even notice the difference, or may like the taller height.

What you're suggesting sounds easy but in order to keep the router flat I would need some sort of support around the neck pocket, no? Then I'd need to make sure the support is flat and 100 percent parallel with the body to prevent the pocket from being uneven. I don't have a planer, so I think this will take me several hours to pull off not to mention the cost of a router, bits, wood, clamps, etc. I'm not arguing, but am I over thinking this? Could I just buy a jig from Stewmac and use that? If so that would be easier but it's still over 150 dollars all in with a router and bit. I think it might be easier to get a shop that already has all of the stuff do this.

 

[dwizum]

Yeah, if you're starting from scratch, then it is absolutely easier and cheaper to just take it to someone who knows what they're doing! It would be a little terrifying to learn how to use a router on an otherwise nice body, for sure.