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For those of you who own vintage Fenders, do you know if your neck pocket was original painted or not?  It's seems like my '59 was but I'm not sure. 
I just want to know before I get my refin'd.  I'm a very detailed oriented person to the point where it's one of my faults...
Anyway, my point is that when neck pockets are painted you'll have neck shifting problems, you know what I mean?  Especially if you have a shim in there.  It happens to me at times...  I'll be playing, rocking out, getting into it, etc. and then all of a sudden I feel the neck shift or I hear it slip even (!) and I'm all out of tune.  I've done mods where I've used a small thin piece of metal screen (like the stuff used for windows and doors) to keep it still but it bugs me for some reason.  I just want to know what everybody else does to fight this problem.

Half neckpocket is painted, like this

early jazzmasters had the neck sockets fully painted didnt they?

OffYourFace wrote: Anyway, my point is that when neck pockets are painted you'll have neck shifting problems, you know what I mean?  Especially if you have a shim in there.  It happens to me at times...  I'll be playing, rocking out, getting into it, etc. and then all of a sudden I feel the neck shift or I hear it slip even (!) and I'm all out of tune.

Umm, is it just me, or should this not happen?

I'm really tough on my Jazzmaster (and all my guitars, for that matter), and I've never had this problem. To me, it sounds like there could be something seriously wrong with your jazzmaster.

From '58 to about mid-to-late '62 the pockets were fully painted. Nails were driven into the face of the body, the face was painted and then the body was flipped over to rest on the nail legs when the back was being painted. By late '62 they began the practice of bolting a flattened piece of conduit to the upper two holes in the neck pocket (viewed laterally). The "stick" held the body when painting. This leaves the shadaow mentioned above when the stick is removed. The nails were STILL used (for drying only) until mid-to-late '64 when they created a "tree" for drying, and could put the conduit on the tree. So the shadow should still be there post '64, although the nail holes are gone. You should only see nail holes AND the neck pocket shadow for around a 2 year period, late '62 to late '64.

'58 - '62 = Nail holes only

'62 - '64 = Nail holes AND neck pocket shadow

'64 - ? = Neck pocket shadow

You typically don't see the neck pocket shadow long into the 70s. I'm unsure what paint method they used after that, but the pockets seem to be fully painted.

chrisjedijane wrote: Umm, is it just me, or should this not happen?

I tend to agree .. considering that most current production Fenders (and other bolt-ons) have painted neck pockets .. it doesn't seem like it could be the only cause.

yeah, your guitar shouldn't be going out of tune because the neck is moving....