Do you shim your necks?

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rhythmjones
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Re: Do you shim your necks?

Post by rhythmjones » Wed Apr 13, 2016 3:23 pm

I might have to try those stew mac shims. I've used business cards, sandpaper or guitar picks. But it would be nice to have wood on wood on wood contact for the entire area of the neck pocket. I'm no woodworker so having them prefab is the way to go for me.
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Re: Do you shim your necks?

Post by Francer » Mon Apr 18, 2016 1:32 pm

Haustnótt wrote:. I use a Staytrem; it has ample height adjustment for this setup. Is it true that the Mastery bridge offers more sustain than a Mustang bridge does, by the way? Do you notice any difference?
I couldn't really tell you to be honest. I tend to play more rhythm/arpeggio style so sustain is not something i pay much attention to. Also, the break angle changed dramatically with the shim so i think that also would have helped sustain.

I did do a very quick acoustic comparison between my CIJ (the one in the picture) and my AV65 Jag which has a Staytrem and it was very hard to tell the difference sustain wise, although I must say the Mustang bridge definitely rattles when I hit the string hard, so if/when i do replace it, it will be another Staytrem.

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Re: Do you shim your necks?

Post by rhythmjones » Wed May 04, 2016 11:11 am

Francer wrote:Here's a pic of my CIJ with a 1deg Stewmac shim, got good break angle over the bridge now. Works pretty well, I've got 10s on it with a pretty low action with only a minor bit of fretbuzz which is acceptable to me.

One thing to consider, I had a Mastery on this before but with the shim I couldn't get it adjusted tall enough to lift the strings off the fretboard so I had to revert to the old Mustang bridge that came with the guitar.

I guess it might be possible if I'd fully maxed out the bridge posts and the saddle height adjusters on the Mastery but I didn't attempt this as I can't imagine that's a recipe for stability either.

Image
Interesting. I just installed the 1 degree shim on my JM last night. I put he .5 degree shim on my Tele, replacing a 50mm Tortex pick I had been using. It was perfect, barely had to make any adjustments. But my JM was unshimmed. I was able to get the action down to about 3.5/64ths (it was about 4.5/64ths before), and it plays well up and down the neck. But, I had to lift the bridge almost to comical levels. A bit higher than even yours. I had to raise the pickups as far as they would go.

(I actually thought that I had shimmed the neck on that guitar, and that the StewMac shim would just be replacing it. But I was mistaken, it was unshimmed.

I only had a few minutes to play on it this way last night, but my initial thought is that this guitar just mustn't need a shim. But now I see how high up your bridge is.

IDK. I'll play it a bit tonight and see how I feel.
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Re: Do you shim your necks?

Post by rhythmjones » Wed May 04, 2016 4:09 pm

Okay. I took the shim out of the Jazzmaster. The bridge was comically high, and I couldn't adjust the bridge pick up high enough. My mistake was thinking that This guitar had already been shimmed, which it hadn't. I'm happy with the half a degree shim on the tele though. That worked out nicely.
Last edited by rhythmjones on Thu May 05, 2016 11:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Do you shim your necks?

Post by Francer » Thu May 05, 2016 11:26 am

rhythmjones wrote:Okay. I took the shim out of the Jazzmaster. The bridge was comically high, and I couldn't adjust the bridge pick up high enough. My mistake was thinking that This guitar had already been shimmed, which it hadn't. I'm happy with the half a degree shim on the tele though. That worked out nicely.

If anyone wants this one degree shim, p.m. me and I'll mail it to you.
Yes, i had that same problem with my bridge pickup as well, it was hanging in by about two threads on the original CIJ screws, it kept falling out! Luckily I had some spare AV ones which were longer, also had to add more foam underneath it.

I think the Mustang bridge i was using was probably junk. Since that picture, I've put an AV65 bridge in there and i'm really happy with how this guitar plays now, so not feeling the need for a Staytrem just yet.

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Re: Do you shim your necks?

Post by k701 » Mon May 09, 2016 3:48 am

Shimming is not necessary on all bolt on necks-especially if bridges and pickups are being maxed out to such extents. Sometimes it is better to shave the neck pocket to accommodate a lower more stable bridge. The pocket itself can be angled to provide the same function as a shimmed neck if required. If 10s are too slinky after this, go up to 11s.

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Re: Do you shim your necks?

Post by Francer » Mon May 09, 2016 1:02 pm

k701 wrote:Shimming is not necessary on all bolt on necks-especially if bridges and pickups are being maxed out to such extents. Sometimes it is better to shave the neck pocket to accommodate a lower more stable bridge. The pocket itself can be angled to provide the same function as a shimmed neck if required. If 10s are too slinky after this, go up to 11s.
That's a fair point for sure.

The nice thing about a shim, especially a pre-formed one like the Stewmac ones mentioned on this thread, is they're fairly idiot proof for the likes of me. I not about to start making irreversible changes to the neck pocket in the hope of achieving the desired break angle. The downside is they have a fixed angle and 1 deg is probably slightly too much, certainly in my case, but 0.5 deg was not quite enough.

Up until now I'd never been happy with the set up of this Jag since I'd bought it, and had more or less given up playing it in favour of my JMs. It wasn't until I got my AV65 Jag that I realised how good a Jag could be, so decided to have another go at setting it up. The AV65 comes stock with an angled neck pocket and the bridge out of the factory looks pretty similar to the shimmed CIJ in terms of height (i'll try to add a pic later).

I've got a selection of bridges from various offsets, Staytrem, AV65, Mustang and Mastery and the only one that couldn't cope with the 1deg shim was the Mastery.

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Re: Do you shim your necks?

Post by k701 » Mon May 09, 2016 2:31 pm

It's not the type of work a guitar diy'er would do, that's for sure. I'm surprised your AV65 has such a high bridge. Mine came much much lower. I'd never seen a jag set with a bridge that high until I saw that photo- and wondered how it doesn't keep rocking to one side or get in the way. A neck pocket shave is not a particularly pricey piece of work with someone who knows what they're doing. You should see a improvement in tone as well with a good set up.

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Re: Do you shim your necks?

Post by Francer » Mon May 09, 2016 11:06 pm

Well, as promised here's a picture of my AV65, it's stock, apart from the Staytrem, and appears un-shimmed as far as I know, there's certainly no tell tale air gap under the neck heel.

Image

As you can see the bridge is pretty high here too, it doesn't really worry me tbh. Surely Fender would never let a top of the range guitar such as this leave the factory with a bad set up ... :whistle:

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Re: Do you shim your necks?

Post by k701 » Tue May 10, 2016 1:23 am

That's still pretty high. Don't take that as the norm. If you like it like that, that's fine. It's about how you want your guitar.

Francer wrote:Surely Fender would never let a top of the range guitar such as this leave the factory with a bad set up ...
Haha

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Re: Do you shim your necks?

Post by Axolotl » Tue May 10, 2016 8:26 am

Thought I'd share my latest experience with these.

As I said a few posts above, the 1 degree shim worked quite well on my 59 JM. But even so, the strings felt a bit too loose and the bridge looked still kinda low (the 59's taller thimbles threw me off a bit, so I couldn't tell for sure). 2 days ago I decided to put the leftover 0.5 degree on top of other shim to achieve a greater break angle. I thought the bridge would go sky high, but instead it worked like a dream. I got a better bridge height and angle, but also the guitar came more alive, the strings resonate more and they feel more springy. I can really tell a difference (I'd say due to shimming higher the neck and not the stewmac shims per se) . I adjusted the pup height a bit, and ever since I have this guitar has felt or sounded this good. I'm elated.

I know 1.5 degree is a lot of shim, but this Jazzmaster is loving it. I don't think I'd ever think of shimming the neck this much if it wasn't for these pre-angled shims. So glad I got them. You can see in the pics the two shims at the neck joint and the bridge height I'm using.

Image

Image

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Re: Do you shim your necks?

Post by Monkeyrebirth » Mon May 23, 2016 6:45 pm

Haustnótt wrote:I put a thin maple shim in the neck pocket of my VMJM today, giving me a half-degree neck tilt. I wasn't sure if I needed one, but the high E string felt a little loose in the groove of my Staytrem bridge, so I thought I'd give it a try. I bought a readymade one from Stewart-MacDonald: http://www.stewmac.com/Materials_and_Su ... Shims.html

Lo and behold! This transformed the instrument from good to downright fantastic. The increased angle over the bridge really made a huge difference. The sustain is now at least as good as on my Telecasters, and the dynamic register feels huge. Phrasing feels so much more natural and eloquent now. The tone changed a bit too, there is slightly more crispness and firmness in the midrange. This is of course also because the distance to the pickups increased a little.

I cannot recommend this very small and easy modification enough. The shim perfectly fit the neck pocket, and the holes perfectly aligned with the screws. The whole operation took a couple of minutes. I did not expect this to have any effect at all, and it turned out to be the most effective mod I have done on this great and ridiculously cheap guitar.
Tried to shim myself but I have extremely limited tools (some hex wrenches, a screwdriver and some sandpaper!). The angle wasn't sharp enough and I worked out it was more economic just to buy the StewMac shim!

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Re: Do you shim your necks?

Post by Mad-Mike » Wed Jun 01, 2016 11:45 am

I don't shim any of my necks anymore, and I run .009-.042 gauge Fender Bullets on all of my offsets save for the Musicmaster. Never have a problem with strings jumpting the saddles either - fixed that by putting stronger springs on the high and low E bridge saddles of my Jaguar and Jazzmaster.

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Re: Do you shim your necks?

Post by eligit » Tue Jun 07, 2016 8:32 am

k701 wrote:Shimming is not necessary on all bolt on necks-especially if bridges and pickups are being maxed out to such extents. Sometimes it is better to shave the neck pocket to accommodate a lower more stable bridge. The pocket itself can be angled to provide the same function as a shimmed neck if required. If 10s are too slinky after this, go up to 11s.
i am about to install a new (flatter radius, taller fret) neck on my AVRI JM and am definitely interested in (maybe) doing just this. rather i'd have my tech do it.
is there any reason why shaving the neck heel (rather than the neck pocket) would not work in a similar way? i use a mastery bridge already and it appears nowhere near maxed out height wise and i'm not thinking of a massive change in neck angle, just a touch to firm things up. i'm also thinking of at least experimenting with 11s rather than my usual 10s.

obviously the downside of the "shave rather than shim" strategy is you can't take it back....but if done right it would be a neater solution.

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Re: Do you shim your necks?

Post by zeoy » Mon Jul 18, 2016 2:47 pm

I just installed the 0.5 Stew-Mac shim in my VMJM. Previously I had one stripe from a business card in the middle of the pocket and two at the bottom to create a smoother slope. Worked fine but I feel the wooden full contact shim works slightly better (or it's just placebo). I had to raise the bridge a little bit more (half a turn for each screw) but the height of the bridge seems very reasonable. I feel the neck vibrating a little bit more and the sustain increased. Overall I'm happy with this little mod.

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