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Greetings All!

I'm just an everyday guitar player, hobbyist, all-around enthusiast and amateur repair type, that is brand new to the Luthier's Forum, and the issue I'm having is a bit laborious to explain, but I'm hoping to get some guidance from more experienced luthiers here, about how best to address a rather quirky problem with a cherished personal Strat. I've been working on guitars (small kine) now for about 25-30 years, and I can usually/eventually get things done right myself, but this one has me seriously stumped. So, here we go . . .

This guitar was originally a stock, Fiesta Red, '07 Fender CS Time Machine, but I quickly grew weary of the bright red, so I purchased a rather expensive (~ $400?) one-piece alder body in tobacco burst from Warmoth, with plans to re-work most of the electronics, minus the pups. I slowly and carefully put the thing together over a few days time, with a pretty cool little 7-way wiring scheme (added N+B and N+M+B settings), but other than new pots, caps and switch, all of the rest of the original parts/hardware were transferred straight over without change, including the vintage tremolo and bridge. After everything was assembled, I gingerly tapped the neck down into the existing pocket of the Warmoth body (which was snug, but not ridiculous), and I threw a set of 11-50 strings on it. I then tuned it to pitch and let it sit for a day or two before returning to it, to begin the overall setup (i.e., truss rod, string height, intonation, etc.). Anyway, after just a few seconds of follow-up inspection, I instantly noticed the rather dramatic mis-alignment issue with the strings and fretboard that is readily visible in the photos posted below.

As you can see, the positioning of the strings relative to the edge of the fretboard is way-way off! The free space between the edge of the board and the high-e (1st) string is virtually non-existent (the string literally rolls right off the edge of the fret wire when depressed), while the space between the edge of the board and the low-E (6th) string, is unnecessarily excessive (nearly a full 1/4"). So essentially, the entire neck needs to move laterally in the treble direction, by (I'd say), at least 3/32"-1/8" or more. Now, a few key things to note . . . the neck fit was tight (snug to very snug), and the four pre-drilled holes in the Warmoth body for passage of the neck attachment screws, all lined-up perfectly with the four pre-existing (factory) holes in the stock Fender neck. Hence, there is NO room to move the heel of the neck laterally, not left, not right, not anywhere! Once installed, string height on the neck was fine (no shimming needed), and string alignment with the pole pieces wasn't particularly bad for a Fender, at least in my experience. Lastly, the stock, vintage (6-hole) tremolo, installed straight-away without issue, using the six pre-drilled holes in the top, and the factory filing of the nut was relatively proper, with adequate space between the high-e string and the edge, more so than in the higher registers (frets 20+).

And so, having 'no clue' about how to address this type of an issue, I phoned Warmoth to request some guidance from their tech support folks. To my dismay, they said "shave or sand the pocket" on the inside wall, treble side, which in my view, would not only risk chipping the paint (potentially), but ideally, should not have been required on such an expensive guitar body. In addition, as you can see from the photos, the pickguard itself (which significantly, is also a Warmoth product), would require similar shaving or routing, in order to allow for any added lateral movement of the neck (in the treble direction), when and if the pocket was in-fact shaved. And then last but not least, is the fact that such shaving of the pocket, and the resulting lateral movement of the neck in the pocket, would create a larger gap in the pocket on the bass side and would cause unwanted mis-alignment of the four neck attachment screws passing through the body to the neck.

What's my own inexperienced conclusion? To be honest, I'm reluctant to even give one, but given all of these various factors, observations and limitations, its almost as if the tremolo routing (rather than the neck or pocket), including the positioning of the six tremolo mounting holes, was amiss somehow (i.e., skewed slightly to the treble side?), because everything else with the neck, the pocket and the neck attachment holes, all seem to be copacetic. So what do you folks all think? Do you think its the neck? The pocket? The tremolo routing? Something else that I haven't identified? And what do you think is the best overall way to approach fixing it?

Thanks for your patience with me on this (and with this tedious posting), and thanks ahead-of-time to all who choose to contribute their views on the topic. I'm most grateful. Have a safe and happy weekend out there!

Here's what I usually do...

Loosen the 4 neck screws a bit, then flip the guitar to face up.
Grasp the body and the neck, holding them parallel to the work surface.
Hold the body edge to your chest, and then slowly pull the neck toward you until it moves the tiny bit needed for the strings to line up (it might make a noise - no problem).
Turn guitar over on the work surface and retighten the screws.

Most times, there's a bit of slop in the screw holes in the body to allow this adjustment.

If this doesn't work - THEN you might need to open up the pocket a wee bit.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Like Chris said, but sometimes the screw holes in the body need to be opened up a little (if the screws are tight through the body)

Gentlemen;

My sincere thanks to both of you for your responses.

As a relative amateur, with very little experience in such 'structural' things as shaving pockets, etc., my goal with this thread was to gain the insights and opinions of people who truly know what they're doing, and its paid great dividends here in doing so. Despite having posted this same question elsewhere in the past, with upwards of 20+ responses from various folks, the suggestion of slightly over-boring the diameter of the four attachment holes in the floor of the pocket was never mentioned. And I've gotta be honest, as painfully obvious as it probably seem to others, I never even considered that approach myself. It makes perfect sense, because I suspect you're right, it probably wouldn't take much (maybe a widening of ~1/32" larger diameter max?), to gain the needed 3/32" or so further downstream on the fretboard, but in the end, its still going to depend largely on whether there's any room at all for the neck itself to pivot in that overly snug pocket.

Before doing any drilling, I'll try the lateral pressure approach that was suggested by Chris here first, but as I've said, the heel of the neck is awfully danged snug in the pocket, so I'm a tad skeptical about whether it'll yield much play. In addition, I'd really like to avoid any chipping of paint on the top inside edges of the pocket itself, but its probably best to attempt it anyway, before doing any permanent drilling. The diameter of the neck attachment screws appears to be 5/32", so I strongly suspect that even if I have to resort to drilling, a 3/16" bit would likely be sufficient.

Anyway, thank you again for your recommendations and for providing me with the pro guidance needed to proceed with some confidence.

Cheers!

Keep us in the loop, OK?

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Yup, I definitely will do so! I may not be able to get to it again now until mid-week, but I've got new-found confidence that this approach will work, and I'll definitely make a point of following-up with the results next week sometime. Thanks again.

Well, I got rained-out on some early morning rock work here today, so I was able to head home and get after this thing, and its DONE! Yahtzee!

I tried the lateral pressure approach like Chris suggested first, but as I suspected, it really had very little impact on it. So I slowly started boring-out the four holes in the floor of the pocket, step by step. The factory holes were 3/16", so I started right off with a 13/64" bit, boring inward (i.e., from the outside to the inside of the pocket), and (thanks to Bigsby), I used a piece of their red string, tied from the high-e tuning peg to its respective saddle, to get a feel for the changes. I reinstalled the neck, tied-up the string, and although the 13/64" bit helped somewhat, it was readily clear that it wasn't nearly enough.

So, I proceeded to step-up in bit diameter, in steps of 1/64" each, one at a time, reinstalling the neck and repeating the string alignment at each step, but it took a total of three successive expansions of the original 3/16" hole diameter before I arrived at proper alignment of all six strings (13/64" to 7/32", then 15/64" and finally a full 1/4". The diameter of the final bit used was a full 1/4" (a 1/16" net increase in diameter of each hole), but the string alignment is now 'B-U-tee-full', and I couldn't be happier! Thanks guys! I never would have thought of doing this, and even if I had, I probably would been awfully reticent to do so, but I'm sure glad it worked out.

Cheers!

P.S. - Once I get it strung-up with new strings, I'll try to post a finished photo or two of the improved outcome.

Good
I think the neck seats better in the pocket too when the screw threads are not hanging up in the body holes.

Jeff,

That's a good point! Before I started re-boring those four holes, I could see pronounced (coiled) thread marks on the inside of each hole, and one in particular (bass side/front) was particularly bad, leading me to believe that this one (single) hole may have been more of a culprit than the others. Of course, once I had finished boring them, especially at a full 1/4", they were slick as a whistle, but I suspect the next time I remove that neck, there may still be some thread marks on the inside of the holes, particularly that lone culprit.

Yup. Important part is the screws are tight in the neck. Ya done good.

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

O.K., so I've got a new set of strings on it and here's a couple of photos of the newly corrected alignment of neck and strings. Much more space between the high-e and the edge of the board, and it now plays like a dream! Its nothing much to look at really, but its still become of one of my all-time favs, because when I wired-up the 7-way scheme, I kinda went rogue a bit and experimented with some Jaguar-like pots and caps on it (500k/1-meg). I can't really say with any certainty just what the final combination was in that regard without opening back up again, nor can I explain it, but its now got a truly "fat", crisp tone to it, ala some of Fogerty's solo stuff (e.g., Wicked Old Witch, etc.). Just a killer tone. I'm so psyched to have this great axe back in business, I could almost spit!

https://youtu.be/O0wPunXURpY

Thanks All!

P.S. - In terms of my earlier comments on this guitar's tone, I should probably also add that when I first re-worked it, I also blocked the tremolo on it, so its essentially a hard tail. The tremolo is still present obviously, its just blocked-off with a 1" chunk of hardwood, and I imagine this change also added to the improved tone and sustain on it.

You da man.

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

It was good fun - thanks again for your help with it, Chris!

Would some shimming be in order to assure it doesn't move down the road?

No.

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Actually, I was wondered about that too, because unless those four screws are tightened super-super tight, the neck does tend to 'creak' and slowly drift back the wrong way again. So a shim of some sort, might seem like a perfectly logical thing to do, but I can say with confidence that the fit on this particular guitar, is SO incredibly tight, that it would be difficult to re-install the neck (and shim) properly with any sort of side wall shim remaining in its intended place. Just my 2-cents.

Brass shim stock. Can be had in .005" thick increments. Or Coors can sides....(.020 - .025)

Overkill in most cases.

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Well, the OP says it's already drifting back, what would you suggest Chris?

Actually, it has remained in place, but it was definitely creaking and drifting ever so slightly until I was able to really, really tighten the screws down hard. Since then, all is good.

In 35 years, I might have shimmed the sides of a pocket twice.
Cinch that baby down, and rock on.

If all else fails, Fender used to put a little strip of abrasive sanding screen between the neck and the body to keep things from moving.

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

For what its worth, I came here to the LF hoping for some truly experienced (professional) advice, because personally, I lack any formal training in lutherie, and I'm certainly glad that I did, because it helped me resolve this issue, but I'm going to be completely honest here and share my inexperienced thoughts on this whole shim vs. over-tightening thing. At least from the standpoint of this particular guitar.

In the case of this guitar, as I've spent more and more time inspecting the junction of neck and pocket, I've come to believe that the true impediment to an entirely proper seating of the neck, is the bluntly rounded corner on the treble-side of the neck itself. The curved inside corner of the pocket on that side, is much more rounded, while that same corner on the neck is rather bluntly rounded. I hope that description makes sense. Picture the sharp or blunt arc of a 1/2" piece of doweling (short radius) vs. that of one that is more sweeping (longer radius) like 1-1/2" doweling. In other words, I'm convinced that the restriction to lateral movement is from the neck, at the inside "corner" (treble-side) of the heel and the inside corner of the pocket, rather than the treble-side "sidewall" of the pocket itself. Or, to put it somewhat differently, I strongly suspect that a very minor degree of sanding (maybe 2mm?), on just the very edge of the treble-side corner of the neck (not the pocket), would resolve the problem immediately, without a need for the earlier drilling of the four holes in the pocket, or for any shims. Hence, I'm convinced that regardless of its thickness, a shim, placed on the bass sidewall, would still not have provided any added lateral movement or any added stability, because there is simply nowhere for the neck to go in that treble-side direction. Again, I hope that makes sense.

However, as I said here earlier, I want to be perfectly honest, so I'll add that the sheer amount of cinching or over-tightening that was required of those four screws to effectively stop the slow, gradual creeping of the neck back in the bass-side direction of the pocket, was "ungodly" (!!), and for me, with my relative inexperience at such things, was certainly unnerving. Basically, it leaves a guy wondering whether he's about to strip the threads in the heel of the neck? And so, as I've tried to describe above, without some minor sanding of that problematic treble-side corner of the neck's heel, I'm confident that shims of any sort would not have made a difference here.

I'll close by adding that I've got a perfectly good aerosol can of Guitar Reranch clear nitrocellulose here for touch-ups of the neck's finish if ever needed, so the next time I change strings on this particular Strat, I may well attempt some very minor, targeted sanding of that treble-side corner of the neck, just to see if I'm right. Anyway, thanks again to all who contributed here and I hope that this added posting will help to clarify things somewhat.

Cheers!

The neck not quite fitting the pocket is new information and probably would have influenced some of the advice.
Round off that corner of the neck, glue a strip of 220 grit sandpaper in the neck pocket, and don't over tighten the screws.
When you're putting screws into hardwood, it frequently helps to drag the threads across a bar of soap. A little dry soap on the threads greatly reduces the effort required to turn the screw. You're more likely to shear off the screw than strip the threads in hardwood with a properly sized pilot hole.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Seriously?? Uh, yeah . . . no!

While I appreciate your input, I'm afraid we're getting somewhat lost in the weeds here, and at my expense. Stating that the neck "not quite fitting" the pocket is "new information" is wholly inappropriate. It was aptly addressed, ad nauseam, in the 3rd paragraph of my initial posting. Kindly read it or re-read it. Secondly, as it concerns "properly sized" pilot holes, they are stock (unchanged) Fender pilot holes, never been compromised or altered, so that part seems a bit off-base too.

However, my thanks for the soap suggestion. It makes good sense and I'll gladly apply that where needed in the future.

Mark the neck tenon with some chalk or graphite, tighten it down, then check for contact points in the pocket.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker