Techs who don't understand offsets

[Powdered Toast Man]

I went over to a friend's house last night and he showed me his parstcaster Jaguar that he had built from an MJT body and Musikraft neck. It was an experienced local tech who did the build. My friend asked if I might be able to help him get the action down a bit as it was quite high. What I found is that the tech manufactured a "shim" for the neck pocket which was completely flat and about 1/4" thick. AND he had a full pocket sized piece of business card in there as well (again, no angle). So the tech obviously identified the need for shimming, however instead of adding neck angle he attempted to build a platform to raise the entire neck up in the pocket. It was just brutal.

I took the guitar home with me, pulled the neck off, yanked this "shim" attempt, and then I added a 1 degree StewMac shim. Did a truss rod adjustment while I was at it and then I put it back together and lo and behold it was nearly perfect right there. I didn't have to touch the bridge height and the action dropped from 0.100" to 0.060". I fine tuned the rest of the setup and now it plays beautifully. I gave the guitar back to my friend and he said it's like a completely different guitar!

So yeah, yet another tech that has no clue when it comes to offsets. They're not Strats or Teles.

[LVC]

About 10 years ago a new tech set up his shop in my city. Before that, there had been only one tech/builder, and he had done such a botched job of repairing my LP's broken headstock, and for such a ridiculously astronomical price, that I swore I'd never give him another cent.

So I visited the new tech's workshop. Huge place, lots of tools, quite a few WIP instruments. Looked good.
I asked him whether he could order a Jazzmaster neck for me, to replace the Strat-style one on one of my guitars that wasn't to my liking.
He thumbed through his parts catalog and said "nope, but I could get you a Jaguar one, how about that?"
I never came back.

[IceBlueBoogaloo]

Went to a long-time tech with my new Jazzmaster who I’ve taken other instruments to in the past. He made a remark on how Fender originally considered only doing JM style vibratos on all future models and gave up on it because people had so much trouble with them. My JM came out still unstable so I learned how to do my own work and now I set up all my own instruments, sans fretwork and nut slotting. Never had an issue with offsets since.

[jorri]

I went over to a friend's house last night and he showed me his parstcaster Jaguar that he had built from an MJT body and Musikraft neck. It was an experienced local tech who did the build. My friend asked if I might be able to help him get the action down a bit as it was quite high. What I found is that the tech manufactured a "shim" for the neck pocket which was completely flat and about 1/4" thick. AND he had a full pocket sized piece of business card in there as well (again, no angle). So the tech obviously identified the need for shimming, however instead of adding neck angle he attempted to build a platform to raise the entire neck up in the pocket. It was just brutal.

I took the guitar home with me, pulled the neck off, yanked this "shim" attempt, and then I added a 1 degree StewMac shim. Did a truss rod adjustment while I was at it and then I put it back together and lo and behold it was nearly perfect right there. I didn't have to touch the bridge height and the action dropped from 0.100" to 0.060". I fine tuned the rest of the setup and now it plays beautifully. I gave the guitar back to my friend and he said it's like a completely different guitar!

So yeah, yet another tech that has no clue when it comes to offsets. They're not Strats or Teles.

That's also not the way to shim a Strat or Tele which often have shims, if not quite as often. [sounds like they are just a bad tech]

[Powdered Toast Man]

I went over to a friend's house last night and he showed me his parstcaster Jaguar that he had built from an MJT body and Musikraft neck. It was an experienced local tech who did the build. My friend asked if I might be able to help him get the action down a bit as it was quite high. What I found is that the tech manufactured a "shim" for the neck pocket which was completely flat and about 1/4" thick. AND he had a full pocket sized piece of business card in there as well (again, no angle). So the tech obviously identified the need for shimming, however instead of adding neck angle he attempted to build a platform to raise the entire neck up in the pocket. It was just brutal.

I took the guitar home with me, pulled the neck off, yanked this "shim" attempt, and then I added a 1 degree StewMac shim. Did a truss rod adjustment while I was at it and then I put it back together and lo and behold it was nearly perfect right there. I didn't have to touch the bridge height and the action dropped from 0.100" to 0.060". I fine tuned the rest of the setup and now it plays beautifully. I gave the guitar back to my friend and he said it's like a completely different guitar!

So yeah, yet another tech that has no clue when it comes to offsets. They're not Strats or Teles.

That's also not the way to shim a Strat or Tele which often have shims, if not quite as often. [sounds like they are just a bad tech]

Sorry what I meant by that is this tech seemed to be trying to get a neck geometry to be able to approach it more like a Strat or Tele (which rarely need to be shimmed). I’m sure this guy was very frustrated because he just couldn’t get the setup to go the way he figured it was supposed to and in his mind the neck pocket was cut too deep so he had to build this platform shim.

[jorri]

Fender often ships teles and strats with the small piece of business card at the heel end. It shouldn't be a flat full pocket

[copacetic]

Honestly, the barrier for entry to call yourself a tech is just extremely low in some places. Particularly in more rural areas, where guitar stores and literally everything else come few and far between. Sometimes, any kid who has an interest and restrings his guitars can get a job at some of these places, because theres simply nobody else trying to do it. I myself was allowed to work as one of two guitar techs on customers guitars in my old shop (local mom and pop joint in east texas) when I barely had any concept what I was doing, and especially couldnt work on offsets or even tell you what an offset was. This is partly how i learned a lot of what i know -- a baptism by fire if you will lol-- but admittedly questionable to have been charging shop rates (only $45 but still) for my "setups" which often included no truss rod adjustment because it ~scared me~ and lots of little things i overlooked which make me cringe now.

But the thing is, i was learning a lot of bad practices from the "tech" working above me. His soldering techniques were very shoddy and rushed, he would use steel wool to polish frets and scratch the hell out of the fretboard (in the opposite direction of the grain no less) and get shavings of steel wool all over the pickups, lots of little things like that.. And he had been working on guitars for 20+ years and learned under a guy who was a local luthier legend building guitars for country stars and such.
I think it goes to show a lot of techs are old school tele/les paul guys who are set in their ways and cant be bothered to get out of their comfort zone and learn new things or improve their techniques. And new guys often learn under these older guys and run into the same pitfalls.

All that being said, it took some time looking at (nerding out over) different offsets very close and hard and comparing them to the one USA jazzmaster we had that played excellently to deduce for myself that there was a problem with the neck break angle and the bridge needed to be raised higher to function better and be more stable. This led me to the internet where I found the plethora of information available about setting up various offset models and started obsessing over them a bit.

All that to say, learning how to setup offsets was very much an interest-motivated thing, at least for me, so I can imagine if the tech doesnt have an interest in learning the intricacies of making these guitars play their best, theyll likely give it their best go on first attempt and settle for "good enough, whatever"

[seenoevil II]

I remember hitting up a notable shop in Portland, Oregon. They had a few JMs/Jags on the walls. All of them had the bridge saddles decked with he grub screws sticking up 7 miles either side of the string like worlds widest saddle notches.

[Highnumbers]

Fender often ships teles and strats with the small piece of business card at the heel end. It shouldn't be a flat full pocket

Back in the 60s, Fender would typically ship Strats and Teles with a vaguely triangular shaped shim made of fish paper (i.e. vulcanized fiber gasket material), which stopped just before the screws.

Some may have gone missing over the years, but they are present on most original Strats/Teles.

[JackFawkes]

Back in the 60s, Fender would typically ship Strats and Teles with a vaguely triangular shaped shim made of fish paper (i.e. vulcanized fiber gasket material), which stopped just before the screws.

Hey, for just $70 you too can have a 60 year old shim all of your own!

[RocknRollShakeUp]

I went over to a friend's house last night and he showed me his parstcaster Jaguar that he had built from an MJT body and Musikraft neck. It was an experienced local tech who did the build. My friend asked if I might be able to help him get the action down a bit as it was quite high. What I found is that the tech manufactured a "shim" for the neck pocket which was completely flat and about 1/4" thick. AND he had a full pocket sized piece of business card in there as well (again, no angle). So the tech obviously identified the need for shimming, however instead of adding neck angle he attempted to build a platform to raise the entire neck up in the pocket. It was just brutal.

I took the guitar home with me, pulled the neck off, yanked this "shim" attempt, and then I added a 1 degree StewMac shim. Did a truss rod adjustment while I was at it and then I put it back together and lo and behold it was nearly perfect right there. I didn't have to touch the bridge height and the action dropped from 0.100" to 0.060". I fine tuned the rest of the setup and now it plays beautifully. I gave the guitar back to my friend and he said it's like a completely different guitar!

So yeah, yet another tech that has no clue when it comes to offsets. They're not Strats or Teles.

Love it good job!
Yeah I had to figure out the offset setup and likely need for shims completely based on my own research, and trial and error.

And BTW not only have my two JMs benefited from the StewMac shims, but also my Tele and Strat, albeit these latter two only required 0.25 deg shims.