Height of the bridge and sustain

[Guitarman555]

I spent tons of time with setting up pickups, bridge, experimenting etc on my 64 jag. Sounds great now, thick tone with tons of mids, no buzzing, great stratish tone thanks to 64 staggered pickup.

What I am still thinking about is sustain -sustain is ok but could be better in comparison with the same period jazzmasters and 62 jag. Is it worth to get bridge higher to get bigger angle of strings direction to tail and get bigger sustain? I would have to increase angle of neck (stewmac shim with non sufficien angle is installed) with additional piece of thin wood/any material shim to get the bridge higher? Not sure if the higher bridge would really impact sustain recognisably.
I measured height of the high strin E2 saddle - distance from the wood to the top of the saddle where string touches the saddle. It is about 3 or 4 mm lower in comparison with other guitars.

Not sure if it is really worth to setup everything again. Maybe just business card on top of the stewmac shim in the rear of neckpocket would help?

[Guitarman555]

I have just uninstalled 5degree stewmac shim and discovered a dent inside the pocket. There is also repaired neck pocket wall by plastic(the blueish colour at the right side of pocket). The holes are too big (only in the pocket), not neck itself. The screws just flow through the pocket. But they fix well in the neck part of connection so i let it be. I installed back the stewmac and a thick sandpaper and it allowed me get bridge much higher. Sustain did increase. Thinking if to put tiny slices of wood into the 4 holes in neckpocket. Also thinking if to fill the dent inside pocket or let it be.

[andy_tchp]

The holes are too big (only in the pocket), not neck itself. The screws just flow through the pocket.

They are supposed to, the holes in the body are not 'too big'. You do not want the screws 'biting' into both surfaces being fastened together, just the neck itself.

[superficial]

Indeed. It’s called a ‘lag screw’ and is how you get the neck to sit tightly in the pocket.

[DrippyReverbTremolo]

I doubt that a higher bridge will have more sustain. But I'm open to facts and hypotheticals.

[46346]

sometimes sustain can be lost if the pickup is too close to the string, creating a magnetic pull on the string.
when that is the case, raising the bridge can help sustain. but more commonly, i would lower the pickup height to see
if sustain improves.

unfortunately, changing the pickup height from the string will also affect the tone and volume.

and just like you noticed, raising the bridge to increase the break-angle of strings to the trem plate will help, too.

the Jaguar is generally not a high-sustain guitar. but i like to have plenty of sustain, and have used
a Staytrem or Mastery bridge to help achieve that. but i've also heard stock set-ups sing out well.

happy tweaking!

[Highnumbers]

I have just uninstalled 5degree stewmac shim and discovered a dent inside the pocket. There is also repaired neck pocket wall by plastic(the blueish colour at the right side of pocket). The holes are too big (only in the pocket), not neck itself. The screws just flow through the pocket. But they fix well in the neck part of connection so i let it be. I installed back the stewmac and a thick sandpaper and it allowed me get bridge much higher. Sustain did increase. Thinking if to put tiny slices of wood into the 4 holes in neckpocket. Also thinking if to fill the dent inside pocket or let it be.

Personally, I would skip any mickey mouse approach like putting slivers of wood into the holes. That's a temporary fix at best. The proper repair (at least for the front two holes) is filling them completely with a solid wood dowel, then re-drilling the hole in the correct size.

As Andy points out, you don't want the screws biting into the body wood at all, they should pass through the body easily. But you also don't want the body mounting holes oversize, allowing the neck to move around while fastening it down, or worse...while playing.