What bothers me from a woodworkers point of view is that the wall of the pocket is not square to the neck. It looks tight at the bottom of the pocket and wider at the top. Not the level of quality you would expect. Is it possible this was a reject being passed off? I don't know if I would accept that. Has he tried contacting Fender with S/N?

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With every mistake we must surely be learning..

Music is the space between the notes.

I still don't understand the point of the post to begin with. Your mind was made up to keep it and repair it or leave it alone. What did you want from the forum? If you wanted to know how to repair it we all could have given advice or directed you to Dan's book. Now that you have the book you are set! Good! See if you can find in the book the amount of tension that neck has on it constantly when strung!! And you believe over time the small gap won't continue to deteriorate? OK!! Done! Good luck!

Hushdrops,
So obviously you two had your minds made up and wasted everybody's time and effort attemping to be helpful.
Thanks.

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Ignorance IS bliss - and I am the happiest person here!

Heavens to Murgatroid! It's like being cross examined in court, isn't it?

Hushdrop, I do hope you carry on and on with this thread because it is providing some star entertainment, day after day.

So just to keep things ticking over... You say:

And that is exactly what people have told you the answer to, repeatedly, for three full pages now. Nikininja in particular detail and from much experience. For your information that gentleman has 20 years and hundreds upon hundreds of gigs under his belt. He knows what he's talking about when it comes to loose neck joints, and much besides.

Though in fact it is not all you asked in your original post:

You indicated that you clearly understand the top e is too close to the edge of the fingerboard, and in so doing invite comment. Unfortunately you don't seem to like the comments you have received - which have impudently agreed with your original observation!!

You also said:

(Or, "no thanks", as it has turned out.) This is an explicit request for views on whether he should return the guitar. Again, you don't seem to like the answer, but we've been replying to your original question.

I and everyone else have responded absolutely specifically to what we were asked!!



That's the core of it, isn't it? You've already decided what you are going to do. You just wanted confirmation of that view, and are upset to be told the contrary.

Anyhow. Just so's you understand who's talking to you, the two latest people to post on this thread, Mssrs. Twelvebar and Martian, are also people of decades of experience both of playing and repairing guitars. Martian has been repairing loose neck joints since the 1970s: it may benefit you to search back for a very interesting recent thread where he addressed how to deal with necks that have worked loose in their pockets. It is a radical fix, and is relevant because it is exactly the issue people have been warning you for pages may occur on this Eric Johnson guitar.

Of course, it may not happen. We are not clairvoyant, we cannot predict with certainty what will transpire. We are just warning you of the possibility while you still have time to do something about it. Which was the point of your thread.



Thank you! For myself, it lowers the heart rate something wonderful to read a wacky and amusing thread such as this. So: we're all perfectly chilled, rest assured.

Can't wait for the next chapter!

Friendly respects to you - C

"20years of playing experience and he still cant buy a well built guitar

I couldnt give a toss what dan erlewine says, he's in no way an ultimate authority on necks and alignment adjustments shouldnt have to be made on a well built guitar anyway. To quote dan 'Theres no tone like a perfectly straight neck under tension'. So every guitar builder that allows neck relief is wrong, it hampers tone. He's been hanging around with eric johnson.

Hope your mate enjoys his duffer.

This has become a completely farsical thread and should be ignored.

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No no and no

this is the sloppiness/shoddiness I was referring to. i would want to see if this is isolated to the side of the cavity. or check if maybe the base of the pocket is off true as well. I wasn't saying to burn the guitar, or hang himself or anything. but i would want to see the extent of the defect if i were the owner. it might be nothing, but maybe overzelous filing/sanding in the touch up after routing, or it could possibly indicate an improperly done neck pocket. i would really want to be sure, if I had shelled out 2K for it.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

didn't waste everybody's time, there were some good posts from folks like ninjaniki and 12bar and picklefingers who made an excellent point about the gap not being evenly cut (the pocket) - now that's something i didn't think about, my friend already picked up the guitar and it's out of state for a while, so it's over...

funny how others post subjective stff and that's cool - like how the MIM's are as good as the MIA's - i didn't throw around stuff like that... also i'm not going to point out names at someone that did

and nobody was forced to read this, geesh..,.,, tough crowd

deleted for sanity

Its not that erlewine is useless far from it. Even a old cynic like me enjoys his advert laden emails. I just dont take him as being the ultimate authority on any particular subject. Particularly if he advises anything less than perfection on a neck joint. As a first build i can see the need for adjustment room on the neck pocket for alignment issues. I cant agree with him advocating it on a high end guitar built by a company who build 4-5000 a week.
Your friend can do what he wants. In 20 odd years when he will likely look at getting it repaired its his own fault. Unddoubtedly that neck is as tight as a tyrefitters grip at the moment. A couple of half decent knocks over the next few years will soon see to that though.

Truth be told i'm a little angry that anyone could let fender off over such a sloppy mistake. As customers its our responsibility to pull them up over that sort of thing. If you bought a car and there were gaps around the doors you wouldnt stand for it.

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No no and no

It could also be a result of yet another one of EJ's psychotic quirks where when he sanded the finish off there, that's what his neck joint actually wound up looking like. Maybe Fender simply decided to copy this foolishness along with all the other personalized stuff too.

And as is what is abundantly evident by now, the owner of this guitar is not receptive to any of our input so this is the latest entry in four pages of what has become a moot point.

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You dig?

no next chapter Ceri, final post, all of this and it wasn't even my guitar, i need to stick to lighter hearted forums, you guys have a great one

looking for a CLOSE THREAD option.......... please!

p.s. - Ceri - i thought you said that Erlwine's book was a must have? nikinija said a couple of posts up that Erlwine is pretty much useless - see EVEN you guys disagree with each other, it's ok [/quote]

(Deleted by fhopkins as it was not my style.)

Good luck Hush. Over all my guess is that your gap won't be a serious problem. But you came and asked people what they thought might or could go wrong. I would want to see if the gap is a cosmetic thing, or a symptom of something bigger.

Anyhow cheers, enjoy your EJ, and we all hope you never have any major problems with it, like a couple of us have had on other axes.


As an aside I have this book, love it!!

I have just reread the whole chapter on the neck realignment, I didn't get this from that at all. I don't see where he says there should be gaps, or that it is desirable.

What I see him saying is that often bolt on necks need alignment.

direct quote, which I think he is referring to is here:

"Sometimes you can see plenty of space between the neck and body, and there's obviously room to move it over a little."

They were doing a shift to the treble side on one guys Strat Plus(which had absolutely no gap, and needed some paint filed to do the adjustment,) and Dan's 67 telecaster (which had a 0.002" gap, a fair bit smaller than this 0.013 gap,) I fail to see where he says you need a gap, or want one.

In fact at the end of that segment he talks about filing away paint from the bottom of the pocket in the Strat, because bumps of paint were creating a gap, and garaunteeing a poor fit.

And actually the curve/angle of this gap in your EJ strat,made me worry about whether the bottom of the pocket was kosher, or if it created a bad coupling.After all dan says " the neck coupling is the most important connection on a bolt on neck guitar!"

Now Dan doesn't seem overly concerned about a small gap, but I don't think i have ever seen or read anything by Mr. Erlewine that advocates or condones sloppiness. And I have several of his books and DVD's.

Hush don't feel we are attacking you, people here genuinely love guitars and are in fact trying to help you. My point all along was that if oyu are in anyway uncomfortable with any aspect of the guitar, (which you must be at least a bit ,to have posted this in the first place,) do a thorough check, make sure this flaw that caught your attention is only 'skin deep' as it were.
$1900 is a lot of money to me, and I would want to be sure everything is fine.

Personally,if the gap is only a minor flaw, I would be more than happy to keep it as is, I have a few guitars that mean a lot to me with some "character" but I would definitely make sure it is only cosmetic. The pocket on davidos guitar looks to be fine, even though it might not be a perfect fit. I would want mine to be like that, I would make sure the rout isn't irregular.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

wow fhopkins, how immature for someone that comes from the land of Randy, Guy and Felix , i hope you don't end up on the Zebra board flaming folks with "newbie" scoldings , thanks to attitudes like yours, i'll be a newbie on this site and won't be back - yea i posted again but couldn't help with your harsh scolding remark (to post again, hopefully the last time around here)

I don't usually do that but you kept the post going and going and going after good people tried to be polite and helpful to you. Your comments to Ceri and Niki were a revelation that nothing anyone could say to you in the most polite way was going to satisfy you. So I never say this but.......

BYE!!! Talk about mature?????.............Real mature poll you just put up. You won't find a better more helpful site that will go out of thier way to help you, but I've a feeling you've already visited most of them and it probably ended in much the same manner.
Good luck and May God Bless!

Wow its like telling a kid not to colour the sky in green on their drawing and watch em throw themselves on the floor screaming.

Misquoting abounds or the op doesn't fully understand context.

Utter buffoonery.

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No no and no