Neck shim for an AmPro II JM

[Trent in WA]

Hi all! This is my first post to this august forum, and I have a question: Does anybody make a precut and tapered neck shim for American Professional II’s? They have the “sculpted” neck heel, and a standard rectangular Fender shim wouldn’t work.

Thanks for any help, Trent

[timtam]

The American Pro series should have already have a ~1 deg angled neck pocket, cut that way at the factory. So a shim would only be necessary if the bridge is not high enough to achieve good string-saddle downforce (eg static bridge position is not stable) at your preferred action; or you can't get to that preferred action within the bridge's current height adjustment range. Unfortunately Fender are poor at listing that angled neck pocket feature for the guitars that have it.

Stewmac do have 'blank' unshaped tapered shims for guitars where the shim needs to be cut to an odd shape (which can probably be done with strong pair of scissors, once the shape is traced out). But chances are that a regular-dimension shim can be cut to shape for the Am Pro pocket shape more easily. Which means that the cheaper ones from Tosicam or Muspor can be used, who don't sell a blank shim (but not the unbranded ones, which in most peoples' experience are not tapered, despite the labelled angle).

[Trent in WA]

The American Pro series should have already have a ~1 deg angled neck pocket, cut that way at the factory. So a shim would only be necessary if the bridge is not high enough to achieve good string-saddle downforce (eg static bridge position is not stable) at your preferred action; or you can't get to that preferred action within the bridge's current height adjustment range. Unfortunately Fender are poor at listing that angled neck pocket feature for the guitars that have it.

Stewmac do have 'blank' unshaped tapered shims for guitars where the shim needs to be cut to an odd shape (which can probably be done with strong pair of scissors, once the shape is traced out). But chances are that a regular-dimension shim can be cut to shape for the Am Pro pocket shape more easily. Which means that the cheaper ones from Tosicam or Muspor can be used, who don't sell a blank shim (but not the unbranded ones, which in most peoples' experience are not tapered, despite the labelled angle).

Great info, timtam. Thanks!

[ldp54002]

The Pro IIs have microtilt necks from the factory, so if you need to raise the heel a bit, you can do it without a shim.

[timtam]

I have to say I seriously hate microtilt - propping up the end of the neck on the end of a single screw ... what could go wrong ? My disdain is firstly a result of my having to swap neck/bodies between guitars that do/don't have it, which is a PITA, albeit mostly for the original 3-bolt microtilt on 70s guitars and 70s resissues. But mechanically it's a bad idea too - there is a strong school of thought that such microtilt/narrow shims, that do not fill the neck pocket, can lead to end-of-neck 'ski jumps' (see Gerry Hayes' writings on that subject). Microtilt's only possible use to my mind is trialing a neck angle change and then putting in an equivalent full-pocket shim (now available inexpensively). Although there's no easy way to know which particular shim angle will match a given microtilt setting (because tapered shims are not always exact angles, and also have a flat offset) ... which means that microtilt is even less useful.

Not one of Leo's better ideas - particularly the original 3-bolt microtilt design that is incompatible with every other Fender neck/body. The more recent 4-bolt microtilt is at least more compatible with non-microtilt necks/bodies. But the 'sculpted' heel on the Am Pro II means that you lose that advantage - swapping necks or bodies to regular necks/bodies without that heel would require some re-drilling.

I hope Fender never puts microtilt on another offset.