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Post subject: Mexican telecaster neck body fitment issue
Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 8:42 pm
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So I decided to build my own telecaster from 100% authentic Fender parts. I found a 90s body, some 52ri pickups, and a new neck. All assembled and fit is snug but the neck is 2-3 mm too high on the body. My bridge saddles have to be jacked way up to get a proper setup. Is there a difference in years that would cause the pocket to be thinner or the neck to be thicker to cause this? Thoughts? I will try pictures to show it later.

Side note, maybe I'm deaf but the pickups sound way too similar to the Mexican tele standard pickups for me to notice a difference.

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Post subject: Re: Mexican telecaster neck body fitment issue
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2017 12:07 pm
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You can put shim in front of the pocket, this will raise the neck and you can screw down saddles.

Image

Image


Last edited by stratele52 on Sun Apr 09, 2017 2:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Mexican telecaster neck body fitment issue
Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2017 8:58 pm
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Ryandalling wrote:
So I decided to build my own telecaster from 100% authentic Fender parts. I found a 90s body, some 52ri pickups, and a new neck. All assembled and fit is snug but the neck is 2-3 mm too high on the body. My bridge saddles have to be jacked way up to get a proper setup. Is there a difference in years that would cause the pocket to be thinner or the neck to be thicker to cause this? Thoughts? I will try pictures to show it later.

Hi Ryandalling,
Here are some things you can check.
1) If you are using a Fender body with a "Micro Tilt adjustment, make sure that this adjustment is not altering your neck geometry.
Here are pictures of a Micro Tilt Adjustor inside the neck pocket of a Fender body:

Image

Image
If your body has a Micro-Tilt adjustor, and you are using a neck backing plate with an adjustor hole, you can use the proper Allen key to make sure that the micro-Tilt adjustor is loose and not applying pressure at the base of your neck.

Image
If you are able to reach the adjuster through the plate hole, first loosen the strings and loosen the neck screws before unscrewing the Micro Tilt adjusting screw.
Loosen the Micro Tilt adjustor screw to the point where it will be loose and place no pressure on the neck after the neck screws are tightened.
Retighten the neck screws and retune the guitar.

If your body has a Micro-Tilt adjustor, and you are NOT using a neck backing plate with an adjustor hole, you will need your loosen your strings and remove the neck.

Image
After you loosen your strings, wrap the neck with masking tape near the 12th fret before loosening and removing the neck, as this will keep the strings in place for easy reassembly.
Remove the neck and unscrew the adjustor screw so that it is below the surface of the Micro Tilt adjustor inside the neck pocket of the body, where the adjustor screw would hit the neck.
You can also remove the adjustor screw from the Micro Tilt assembly completely.
Reassemble the guitar, remove the masking tape from the neck, retune the guitar and check to see if your string action, or string height has changed.

If the strings are now much higher from the frets, due to the Micro Tilt adjustor screw no longer hitting the neck and interfering with the neck geometry, adjust the bridge saddles down, using the radius, or crown of the neck as a guide from side to side, and see if your problem has been resolved.
For final adjustment reasonably lower the bridge saddles as low as possible and depress each string at each fret, and determine acoustically if there is any string buzz at any fret.
Adjust the bridge saddles as may be needed, and then check and adjust intonation.

2) If this was not your problem, next check the truss rod adjustment of your neck.
With the strings tuned, sight down the neck on both sides from the bottom of the guitar, and determine how straight your neck is.
As you sight down the neck, you want the neck to be nearly straight, with only the slightest amount of "relief," -or- the slightest amount of upward curvature in the neck.
Since I assume that you are using a modern style neck, an Allen key is used to adjust the truss rod adjuster inside the hole in the neck headstock.

If the neck appears to curve backward, take 1/4 to 1/2 truss rod turn out of the neck by turning the truss rod adjuster counter clockwise.
Then, put some pressure on the neck in both directions, forward and backward, to attempt to settle the truss rod adjustment, and then recheck the neck for straightness.
You may have to wait a few days for the full adjustment to be realized.

3) If that does not resolve your problem, next, determine if your neck sits at the proper height when affixed to the body.
Using a 3-ply pickguard, the exposure of the bottom side marker on the neck, arising beyond the top surface of the pickguard, should appear to be similar to the exposure shown in this picture.

Image
If the neck marker appears to be buried by the pick guard (this should be extremely rare with a Fender neck and body), you may need you raise the neck in the neck pocket of the body.

Image
Here I used about 25 pieces of copper tape, carefully cut to fit the neck pocket exactly, where they were affixed to the body neck pocket, to raise the neck in the neck pocket of an after-market body.
The use of copper, or any other substance to shim the neck of the guitar will not have any affect on the amplified sound of the guitar, contrary to widely popular, crazy guitar myths.

Image
4) If you are still having problems, sometimes you may need to slightly tilt the neck forward to improve the geometry of the neck.
The neck pictured required three (3) strips of masking tape placed above, the top mounting screw holes on the neck, to shim the top of the neck out to the proper distance, with an after-market body.

After you loosen your strings, once again, wrap the neck with masking tape near the 12th fret before loosening the neck, as this will keep the strings in place for easy reassembly.
Remove the neck and add the masking tape strip as described and shown below.

Image
This procedure requires applying only one strip of masking tape at a time, as each strip of masking tape will change the geometry of the neck, so apply only one strip of tape at a time.
Reassemble the guitar, tune the guitar, and lower the bridge saddles, determine if a further adjustment may be needed, and repeat the procedure as may be necessary.

After achieving a neck geometry that you think will work correctly, acoustically check each string for fret buzz at each fret, adjust the bridge saddles as necessary, and re check the strings for proper intonation and adjust as necessary.

Those are all of the tricks and tips I can offer.
One or more of these suggestions should surely resolve your problem.
When faced with a problem like this, you need to carefully think about what you believe the problem is and then experiment.
The more you experiment, the more you will learn.

Ryandalling wrote:
Side note, maybe I'm deaf but the pickups sound way too similar to the Mexican tele standard pickups for me to notice a difference.

Once you get your neck geometry problem resolved where the action is good at a reasonable bridge saddle height, this should change the distance of the pickups from the strings and should improve the sound of the pickups.

You may also have to adjust the pickup height, relative to your new string height.

Good luck!!


Last edited by MickJagger on Sat Apr 08, 2017 9:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Mexican telecaster neck body fitment issue
Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2017 9:37 pm
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Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2012 6:56 am
Posts: 1677
Location: Coastal Bend, Tx.
Spot On Mick, that is sage advice.


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