Hey guys.
have started aquiring parts for and assembling partscaster. small issue on the neck fit to the body in the pocket. both fender parts MIA. Clapton neck and HWY ! body. both very nice parts. when fit together i have a .012" clearance in fit (ie , i can slip a .012"feeler guage on the side of the neck). not a huge gap but enough to anoy me. i was expecting this to happen as i am not able to sellect from a large supply of parts as a manufacturer. (it may be the clapton neck is by design slightly narrower) regardless i want to kick it around here and get your ideas. i could easily shim the sides (only need .006" per side but i think it would be better to use some material to bond to the sides of the pocket to build it up and then flat file and get a nice slip fit for the neck. trouble is what material would bond best to the wood and not interfere with any resonating quality of the neck -body joint. we are again talking a very small build up here so the material must bond well and last well.

thanks in advance guys. god bless, jimmy b

If it really, really bugs you, I would build up the neck pocket some by spraying a few coats of nitrocellulose lacquer. However, I wouldn't worry about that gap too much, there's probably nothing you can do that will dramatically increase the resonance. A soft shim may have a detrimental effect on it. Remember, many old Fenders came set up from the factory with shims to adjust the neck angle anyway. Still, the paint would probably be the best solution for you. Just be sure to mask off the adjacent areas of the body when you spray.

shave down a small piece of wood, paint it the same color as the body and then fill the gap with it. no one will be able to notice, probably not even you.

I tend to agree that for .006' a clearcoat is probably the better solution but laquer is very thin sprayed on. I might think about using a shellac and brushing it on and block sanding this way you are only building up the sides and not the whole pocket I would only do one side at a time so you can keep it flat so the finish will level out and reduce the amount of sanding to square it up

thanks all. anyone else care to take a crack at this one.

as strange as it is to quote myself, this is what a luthier would do if you took it to one and paid the big bucks for a quality fix. I honestly believe this is your best option.

Matchbooks soaked with wood glue will dry hard as wood itself. Clean up the pocket and go. You realy don't want a gap between the neck and the body because that will effect the sound. The vibration of the neck being tight to the body is a good thing for the guitars resonance and timbre.

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Thomas Jefferson

+1
Business card stock works just as well in this same application.

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"I started out with nothing, and still have most of it"

Hi jimmy b: you haven't told us what color the body is or what type of finish it has on it. So relacquering is an open question.

Personally, that gap would bother me and so I'd rebuild it. Someone recently revived a thread on which I did just that with a neck pocket that was much more problematic than yours. What I did to the far end of the pocket on page one of this thread is what you could also do to the sides of yours:

http://www.fender.com/community/forums/ ... hp?t=17948

But repainting afterwards might be an issue, depending what color you are trying to match.

Good luck - C

I really wish you lived in the ST.Louis area your knowledge never fails but to impress me..We could really use a true luthier in this area of the country,,

Ceri,
the body is a stock flat black nitro HWY 1 body. i have seen your work and was quite impressed with the result. one reason why i am wanting to work with this body. also i could order another and wind up with the same or worse problem. i believe at this time i will glue a wood laminate of the exact shape of the side walls to the body. i will allow a small relief from the top , say .010-.020" so as not to need refinishing. if i am careful with the glueing i should have a very nice fix that will make a perfect slip fit to the neck - not visable when installed. if i can locate the neck to the up side of the body i will need only one shim. the small contact area with the bottom side of the neck is negligable so im not too worried about impairing any tonal qualities. not too worried about it anyway if you think of all the micro tilts -including the 2 I own - they lift the neck away quite a bit more from the body than this ever will. i will put it together set it up check neck tilt and shim if nessesary.

if you have any advise for me let me know. i plan on attacking this one on the weekend.
thanks again everyone!

Hi jimmy: sounds good!

I do have one piece of advice. Do as much shaping and thicknessing of that strip of veneer before you glue it into position, because it can be quite hard to get into the corners with a sanding block or whatever once it's in there.

If necessary you can bring it to almost paper thinness by holding it flat against sandpaper on a table top and moving it back and forth. And you can thin one end of that veneer to nothing so that it starts to turn into the curve at the back of the pocket and hardly leaves a join line. Do all that before gluing in place.

And remember to orientate the grain so that it matches that of the body. I couldn't do that at the back of my neck pocket because of the direction of the curve. But on the side(s) you can do it.

Please let us know how you get on!

Best of luck - C

Ceri thanks -

all the folks that helped me out with this may want to follow along with this. we may all learn a little something. i went home tonight with the idea of filling the void. i wanted to bolt the neck in place and string up some E strings to see if i was going to have any further alignment issues. i was waitng on the mail for a neck plate to arrive. i screwed in the neck, strung the e's and loosened and self aligned the neck. strings were perfect. what a relief. i set string height and adjusted trem while i was at it. just wanted to get the first feel of it all. then while plucking it accousticaly i notice it was quite loud and sustain was great unplugged. compairing it with my other 2 axes it resonated much louder and with about the same sustain accoustically. now i must keep in mind that the body is void of electronics ect. but im a believer if it aint broke dont broke it no mo. the neck is set firmly in the pocket on 3 sides. you wouldnt notice the gap without me mentioning it and it is quite structurally stable. in fact as i mentioned before it has probably more firm contact than my micro tilt neck with the screw jacking the neck up . im inclined to just stuff this critter with some tasty pups and move on. it may be the best sounding guitar i have - if not i guess i get out the glue.
what say you guys?

jimmy b

oops double stomped edit