To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

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seenoevil II
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Re: To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

Post by seenoevil II » Wed May 20, 2020 7:51 am

I'll contribute an anecdote, a question and a theory.

My VMJM absolutely needed shims. It only took 7 years to develope the jump. It seemed to nudge the neck in the way it wanted to go judging by the grain. I think of it more as the neck being pulled up by the strings against the folcrum of the distal bolts. Another way, I don't think the short section of the neck over the shim moved, I think the long section past the neck pocket moved. I've never met a JM that hasn't desperately needed one. The alternative is that you can't get the bridge low the enough without the grub screws sticking out.

Theory, you'd prevent the jump by knocking off the material at the very end of the neck pocket. Particularly, the wood past the last two screw holes. There's usually some overspray at the end anyway. When you shim the neck, it pivots over farther bolts. I bet that last half inch or so of wood is the brake over which the neck bends. .

A question:
I know fender does the 1 degree neck pocket on some models. To me, this is the only real solution. Why not "pull paper" like an acoustic neck reset. Precisely reshape the pocket to a flat plane canted back.

Or

Why not a full sized baseplate in the pocket and that gets jacked up or down by a screw?
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Re: To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

Post by Larry Mal » Wed May 20, 2020 8:09 am

seenoevil II wrote:
Wed May 20, 2020 7:51 am

A question:
I know fender does the 1 degree neck pocket on some models. To me, this is the only real solution. Why not "pull paper" like an acoustic neck reset. Precisely reshape the pocket to a flat plane canted back.
This is the best solution, to be sure. That's kind of recent, though. And clearly it takes some effort for Fender to do that.

The fact of the matter is that most electric guitars have a lot of built in slop to them. They went from being handmade and expensive instruments to mass produced things like overnight, and then once rock and roll hit the popularity of the electric guitar exploded and guitar makers dumbed the construction of the instrument down considerably in order to move a lot of product out the door as fast as possible.

The most common example I mention is the adjustable saddle bridge, which is simply not needed. If you seat the neck properly, and build the instrument properly, then you can have a single saddle compensated bridge and the intonation is just fine. Almost every acoustic guitar does it this way and the electric guitar could be no different.

The reason they have adjustable saddles is not for your benefit, it's for theirs. It reduces construction time and cost and allows them a much looser build tolerance than they would have had if they actually had to get every instrument right in the factory. Instead they ship it to you and let you deal with it.

The shim is the same way. Fender wanted to make guitars cheaper and he did, the bolt on neck is much easier to produce and assemble. But it has some disadvantages, namely that if you don't get the neck pocket exactly right, you need a shim. The shim is not for your benefit, it's for theirs, because if they don't get it right in the factory they can still make it work anyway and sell it to you.
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Re: To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

Post by Flurko » Wed May 20, 2020 9:16 am

I realized recently after trying some new strings that my Jazzmaster was desperately in need of a shim. It played weird when I got it, I took it to a luthier years ago who threw away the card stock shim(s) put there by the previous owner (who also assembled it and is a former OSGian ,who knows his way around jazzmasters), but whatever magic setup the luthier did worked out great.

And now some years later, and many parts swapped here and there, the bridge is bottomed out and the action is too high and wonky.

Long story short, i really need something convenient like the Stewmac neck shims, but without the prohibitive cost of importing them from the US to France... And I'm not yet equipped for this kind of precise woodworking (or any kind of woodworking involving more than a wood screw, tbh)

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Re: To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

Post by Larry Mal » Wed May 20, 2020 9:20 am

Right? I used to make my own shims, but they were nowhere near as good as the Stew-Mac ones. I don't have any equipment to make my own well or anything.

But you buy a couple of Stew-Mac shims and it's a lot of money and you think, well, if I get another guitar that needs a shim I should just invest in a full woodworking machine shop and it'll be cheaper.
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Re: To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

Post by HNB » Wed May 20, 2020 9:22 am

I only shim if I can't get the action as low as I would like otherwise. :)
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Re: To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

Post by Larry Mal » Wed May 20, 2020 9:29 am

HNB wrote:
Wed May 20, 2020 9:22 am
I only shim if I can't get the action as low as I would like otherwise. :)
I just did it to all of my Fenders. I like the bridge a little higher and the tighter feel of the strings. I had a guitar that needed it, but then I learned I just prefer it that way.

Plus it can help keep the saddles in place a little better, that sort of thing. There are reasons that a shim can help regardless of where your action is.
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Re: To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

Post by gnoleb » Wed May 20, 2020 5:42 pm

timtam wrote:
Tue May 19, 2020 9:34 pm
Of course part of the reason was also that Fender's manufacturing processes were not precise enough to produce the same neck angle every time
Maybe not in 1969. But certainly now. And with machinery now now, it would be super cheap and easy to make precise wood shims from leftover wood. They aren't doing all that much by hand at the Fender factory these days. Yet they still choose the micro tilt on higher end (non-vintage spec) guitars, even currently. Maybe they know why they are spending that extra money and effort?
Larry Mal wrote:
Wed May 20, 2020 6:30 am
That being said, though, you don't say what kind of shims your two different techs were warning against. Were they telling you that a wooden, full length and full contact shim was bad for tone and stability? Or that other common shimming techniques like a length of credit card or a guitar pick were the problem?
Didn't get into specifics either time, but I'd be surprised if the techs at Truetone were thinking of inserting credit card or guitar pick shims.
Larry Mal wrote:
Wed May 20, 2020 6:30 am
While I'm not going to bother with trying to find scientifically rigorous research here, it doesn't take a huge stretch of the imagination to think that a piece of metal pushing up on a piece of wood which is under quite a lot of pressure from the guitar strings is very likely to warp over the course of decades. It's still wood, after all.
I guess it is possible. I have a 1996 Strat Ultra with micro tilt. No issues with it. I'd be surprised if it had lots of issues that Fender would still be using it on their high end, non-vintage spec guitars.
Larry Mal wrote:
Wed May 20, 2020 6:30 am
The whole point of the full contact shim is to eliminate the singular pressure point of a Micro-Tilt or a bad shim, and to spread the pressure all around.
Again, if you have any info on that, I'd love to see it. But you saying that yet Fender still using micro-tilt on high end guitars for decades...I'm sorry...but I gotta think Fender (and G&L) knows what they are doing there instead of a much cheaper small angled piece of wood or adjusting the neck angle on the CNC options. And I'm happy to be proven wrong, but you link doesn't show any real reason against micro-tilt.
Larry Mal wrote:
Wed May 20, 2020 7:08 am
I will thrown another article out there, though.

Incidentally, though, the Micro-tilt might have been Leo Fender's way of being able to get guitars out the door quickly. Remember that mass produced electric guitar makers came up with a few concepts that just allowed them to have a lot of slop in the construction more than anything else.

The whole bolt on neck is a way of making guitars cheaper in the first place, right?
What makes me doubt that is that they never really used micro-tilt outside of the US factories, and never on the budget guitars where cost was the most important issue (like say the Highway 1). They've used micro-tilt consistently on the higher-end guitars that weren't vintage recreations.

I hear you both and I can't prove either which way. I just think it is funny that Fender would still be using it (and G&L) for decades if a super cheap wood shim or change to the neck angle in the CNC were better. Micro-tilt isn't a consumer-facing feature that promises better sound or anything like that. I'm sure it is quite a small minority of actual players that have adjusted it (I've never adjusted the one in my Strat Ultra). How many players can actually setup their own guitar's truss rod and intonation, let alone getting to neck angle with micro-tilt?

Back to point, I don't see a reason for the OP to put a shim in his guitar which already has a micro tilt. My Strat Ultra has a ton of sustain and tone and no ski jump. If a tech told me to shim it, I'd find a new tech.

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Re: To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

Post by gnoleb » Wed May 20, 2020 6:06 pm

Larry Mal wrote:
Wed May 20, 2020 8:09 am
Fender wanted to make guitars cheaper and he did, the bolt on neck is much easier to produce and assemble.
Definitely true it made it cheaper, but I've also read/seen in a few places that Leo thought it was an innovation to be able replace necks when they "went bad". He apparently thought players would just pop on a new neck here and there. Which of course never happened and sounds a little crazy now. My frets are getting a bit worn...I'll just replace the whole neck. Maybe it makes sense before the world of guitar techs...but still...crazy now.

I think one place I saw this was in Philip Knight's video about Fender. I think I also read it in one of those interviews with the original Fender people of importance that Reverb re-printed online last year.

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Re: To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

Post by Larry Mal » Wed May 20, 2020 6:44 pm

Good point- also remember that Fender was convinced that his necks were stronger than other necks, and they probably are due to the laminate construction. He also didn't think that truss rods were needed.

I think he probably thought that maybe people would be replacing the necks.
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Re: To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

Post by andy_tchp » Wed May 20, 2020 7:41 pm

I've only had one guitar with a Micro-tilt type device, a mid '80s G&L SC3 (tribi9's old one in Viking Blue).

The neck tilt function was part of the overall process to set string height/geometry, with a specific measurement (in tandem with many other measurements/clearances) to get the guitar to the 'recommended' specifications. Not just 'crank it up/down until the angle looks right'.

The original user manual for those early models is still available here:
http://glguitars.com/wp-content/uploads ... manual.pdf

Even though I had the guitar playing well, my curiosity was piqued, so I gave it a go one day and set it up 'to factory spec'. It played like a million dollars afterwards.

It's a shame I didn't quite get along with those pickups for what I was doing at the time, and I later sold the guitar on consignment. A young guy was looking for his first real/quality guitar, fell in love with it right away and got a hell of a deal.
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Re: To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

Post by tammyw » Thu May 21, 2020 5:41 am

A lot of interesting comments here.

Getting back to the OP, the American Professional Jazzmaster has an angled neck pocket, and personally I've never felt the need to shim it (or engage the micro tilt).

For those of you shimming Jazzmasters without angled neck pockets: do you ever actually go more than 1 degree? I know I haven't.

One degree of shims is huge. Credit cards are quite a bit thicker than the typical card stock shim, and it would take two layers of credit card to get up to 1 degree. At that point you'd be able to shove a pick into the gap from the side.

I mean I think the angled neck pocket is enough to eliminate any need for shimming.

The only place where I've used those 1-degree Stew Mac shims was on Warmoth bodies, because they're made to accommodate flat mount bridges. Otherwise I've never put that much shim in any other guitar.


Personally I'd really like to see some neck-through Jazzmasters.
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Re: To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

Post by Larry Mal » Thu May 21, 2020 5:58 am

No, I've never used more than a degree (which is huge) and there have been some cases where one degree was too much and I backed down to a half degree (still a big change).

I would under no circumstances imagine that a guitar with a one degree angled pocket would need a shim, and if it somehow did, I would think the guitar was defective.

Look at this side angle of a Gibson Firebird:

Image

This is what I started wanting to make my Fenders more like by getting a shim in there.
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Re: To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

Post by Flurko » Thu May 21, 2020 6:10 am

Well, all this talking just made me buy a Stewmac shim from a UK seller . It was just under 20€ w/ shipping for a small shaped piece of wood, but I've made sillier purchases on 'improvements' for this particular guitar -hello, TBX pot I clumsily brok with an ill-fitting knob-

I bought the full 1 degree, and now seeing the last few posts in this thread I hope it won't be too much ! But I'm not too concerned.

Regarding the idea of replacing neck, it's also what G&L is doing if you send them your vintage guitar, no ? This seems in keeping with their Leo Fender way of doing things.

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Re: To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

Post by Larry Mal » Thu May 21, 2020 8:51 am

Flurko wrote:
Thu May 21, 2020 6:10 am


Regarding the idea of replacing neck, it's also what G&L is doing if you send them your vintage guitar, no ? This seems in keeping with their Leo Fender way of doing things.
That is correct, and whenever I get $500 together that's what I'll be doing.
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Re: To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

Post by andy_tchp » Thu May 21, 2020 8:12 pm

tammyw wrote:
Thu May 21, 2020 5:41 am
For those of you shimming Jazzmasters without angled neck pockets: do you ever actually go more than 1 degree? I know I haven't.
No. Never more than a single strip of credit card, and usually much less (card stock/expired laminated driver's licence).
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