To shim or not to shim Jazzmaster?

[beefyburt]

Cheers guys, all very interesting. For now, gonna leave alone and just enjoy, see how we get on.

[Mitch T]

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

Care to share where you bought this? Couldn't find it myself!

[Flurko]

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

Care to share where you bought this? Couldn't find it myself!

I bought it from the seller "acousticelectricuk" on ebay :
https://www.ebay.fr/usr/acousticelectricuk

BTW the Stewmac 1° shim in question arrived and looks like this in the neck pocket :


And the height went from flush to the pickguard to this :


I still have some problems : I need some longer pickup screws because the pickups are now too far from the strings, and I still have strings choking in the higher frets. I might need to adjust the trussrod now, but it looks like I need to buy imperial-sized hex keys... The true Jazzmaster setup experience !

[timtam]

I might need to adjust the trussrod now, but it looks like I need to buy imperial-sized hex keys...

Fender truss rod hex keys usually ...
1/8” allen key Fender MIA (3.175mm)
3/16” allen key Fender MIM (4.76mm)
4mm allen key Asian / metric

[Larry Mal]

I still have some problems : I need some longer pickup screws because the pickups are now too far from the strings, and I still have strings choking in the higher frets. I might need to adjust the trussrod now, but it looks like I need to buy imperial-sized hex keys... The true Jazzmaster setup experience !

Maybe not, it's possible that your weather stripping under the pick guard simply isn't pushing the pickups up. You might have to add some- it's common to.

[Flurko]

Maybe not, it's possible that your weather stripping under the pick guard simply isn't pushing the pickups up. You might have to add some- it's common to.

This is also part of the problem, but the body I have has been routed for humbuckers by a previous owner, so the screws lose their bite in the wood before attaining a proper height. Maybe I'll have to shim the bottom of the pickup cavities too !


FWIW, the break angle at the bridge is now great and the strings stay better in the saddles, which was not a given with slippery tapewound strings.

@timtam thanks ! I think my neck is from a MIM strat, with truss rod access at the nut, I'll look it up.

And sorry to the OP for derailing this thread to my own problems!

[Mitch T]

Thanks Flurko, ordered it right away!

[dirty_frank13]

I have the squier jaguar Cv and I just brought the 60th anniversary Fender Jazzmaster. And I have the same thoughts. You believe that I should shim them ?