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I've heard that the neck pocket being improved or adjusted on these models make it so you may need to reverse shim if installing a mastery. I've had a couple of American Originals and now an AV65. I've also had a couple of AVRI's and I don't remember the mastery being as tweaked as it has been on the AO and AV65. I also watched Puisheen's video on the issue. I know I'm probably all over the place with lack of proper terminology. To me it seems that there is more tension with these models vs when I had AVRI's. I've searched the site to read up on it but haven't been able to find anything. I was thinking of buying a tapered shim from Stew mac and installing it backwards. Is this a good idea?

I’ve done this, functionally it works perfectly fine but you’ll have to trim the shim a bit to fit it in reverse. Also, not such a concern, but they look a little unsightly backwards, as the fat end of the shim is visible at the neck join.

Wait, why would this be?

Larry Mal wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:32 am

Wait, why would this be?

Because Fender, God love ‘em, listened to all the people asking for angled neck pockets and decided to make that angle so extreme that the break angle at the bridge is now too far the other way and the bridge pickup is hanging on by about two screw threads in order to reach the strings. Also, if you fit a Mastery it needs to be adjusted so high it literally doesn’t have enough adjustment to lift the strings off the fretboard. Strangely this is only on my FSRs (Sonic blue jag, FMS JM), my sunburst JM is fine.

Check out the pick of my unshimmed Sonic blue jag in this thread, look how tall the bridge is standing

viewtopic.php?t=96831&start=45

To be fair, I haven’t actually gone too far out of my way to try it but I’m pretty sure a Mastery can’t stand that tall.

That pic you linked is exactly what the mastery looks like on my AV65 Jazzmaster. Thanks for the information.

Francer wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 24, 2021 12:08 pm

Larry Mal wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:32 am

Wait, why would this be?

Because Fender, God love ‘em, listened to all the people asking for angled neck pockets and decided to make that angle so extreme that the break angle at the bridge is now too far the other way and the bridge pickup is hanging on by about two screw threads in order to reach the strings. Also, if you fit a Mastery it needs to be adjusted so high it literally doesn’t have enough adjustment to lift the strings off the fretboard. Strangely this is only on my FSRs (Sonic blue jag, FMS JM), my sunburst JM is fine.

Check out the pick of my unshimmed Sonic blue jag in this thread, look how tall the bridge is standing

viewtopic.php?t=96831&start=45

To be fair, I haven’t actually gone too far out of my way to try it but I’m pretty sure a Mastery can’t stand that tall.

Huh. Well, I can't speak to the guitars in question, but I do have an AVRI and MIJ Jazzmaster, both with Mastery vibratos and one degree shims, and I haven't found a problem with that arrangement.

Larry Mal wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:26 pm

Huh. Well, I can't speak to the guitars in question, but I do have an AVRI and MIJ Jazzmaster, both with Mastery vibratos and one degree shims, and I haven't found a problem with that arrangement.

I think the angled neck pockets on the AO models are more than 1 degree. The Squier JMJM also had a somewhat extreme neck pocket angle, and I had to reverse shim since I didn't stick with the adjust-o-matic bridge it came with (which is inherently high above the body). I've mentioned this before, but I suspect Fender went overboard in an effort to prevent people complaining about strings popping out of the saddles, poor sustain, bridge-related buzzing, etc. They're probably trying to appeal to the average consumer who previously thought of the Jazzmaster and Jaguar as inherently flawed models, rather than people who hang out on this site and understand the nuances of setting them up properly.

Could be... I had always heard they were one degree, but I never measured it to know or anything. Fender doesn't talk about it much.

I can't speak from ownership experience, so I'll just have to put my trust in others, but Debaser on this forum measured his as 2 degrees in a recent thread. That thread in particular was related to several members complaining about the neck angle on AOs and using reverse shims to get it back into normal-ish territory.

Also, this thread is about the Mastery *bridge* I believe, but you mentioned that you had Mastery trems. I didn't know if you meant that to mean Mastery bridge+trem. Then again, I may have just done a little too much skimming and not enough reading

Nah, I misspoke... I have two Jazzmasters with Mastery bridges, one of which also has the Mastery tremolo. But at some point I was dimly aware of what we were talking about no matter what gibberish I'm actually typing.

I tried to look up some kind of official word from Fender about the angled neck pocket, but they don't seem to really talk about it, like I say.

Yep, they don't say a thing about it. It's up to the sleuths here on the good ol' offset forum to figure out these details

I went and checked my Bridge again and it’s not as bad as I thought. It isn’t right though. I guess I’ll buy a couple of the stew Mac tapered shims and see what works best. Thanks

Fender has often (always ?) mentioned the angled pocket in the press releases for new models that have it. But they do not generally list it in the guitar's general specs (ie on the web site). So once the release data is long passed, your chances of checking if a given model has an angled pocket are limited. Although we tend to document such things here. My notes say that the following are angled ...

MIA:
AV65
50th Anniversary Jaguar
American Professional series (I and II ?)
Ultra JM
American Original 60s
Thinskins

MIM:
Classic Player
Any others ? 60s Lacquer ? Vintera ?

MIJ/CIJ:
?

Squier:
Any ? JMJM ?

The particular problem that significantly-angled neck pockets (or tapered-shimmed pockets) can create for Masterys or other fixed bridges (with significant trem use) is due to the fact that such bridges require low string-saddle friction. Because with trem use, the moving string has to slide over the saddle, since the saddle/bridge can't move. If however string-saddle friction is too high, this easy sliding cannot occur, raising the likelihood of tuning instability after trem use (because the string may not return to its original length). String-saddle friction is kept low by low string downforce on the saddles - by a suitable combination of low string break angle (lower bridge, by little or no shim/angled pocket) and lower string gauge (low tension). The more you keep one of these low, the less you need to keep the other low. That probably explains why some people have fewer problems than others with a high-ish Mastery, along with varying trem usage.

Mastery also supposedly addresses the friction problem with special treatment of their saddle metal, which can make a high bridge less problematic friction-wise. But if a Mastery on an angled neck pocket guitar (from the factory) still has too-high string-saddle friction, and you don't want to go down a gauge in strings (or regularly lubricate the string-saddle contact points), then a reverse-taper shim might be necessary. Since the neck screw holes are not symmetrically placed, a blank Stewmac shim would be required, and cut/drilled.

The rocking bridge requires the opposite physics - high string-saddle friction. Hence .. tapered shim or angled pocket. With or without higher gauge strings.

For a given string gauge and tuning, string tension is identical for all bridges, as it is entirely determined by scale length, tuning, and string mass per unit length (~= gauge). What may vary is effective string stiffness, the extent to which strings resist length changes (with bending, fretting, trem use). That is affected by friction at the bearing points (saddle, nut), as well as some other things.

timtam wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 25, 2021 7:33 am

MIA:
AV65
50th Anniversary Jaguar
American Professional series (I and II ?)
Ultra JM
American Original 60s
Thinskins

MIM:
Classic Player
Any others ? 60s Lacquer ? Vintera ?

MIJ/CIJ:
?

Squier:
Any ? JMJM ?

The JMJM and Squier Deluxe TR (trem model) both have angled neck pockets for sure. Note that these are the exact same guitar with just different paint jobs and plastics. There's also a non-trem version; the Deluxe ST has a stopbar behind the AOM.

As for the Vinteras, the 60s Modified Jazzmaster/Jaguar would have an angled pocket for sure since they've got AOM bridges and are effectively the updated models of the Classic Player series. I can't speak for the Vintera 60s, but I also think it would be odd for them to not fall in line with the rest of the models.

alexpigment wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:44 am

The JMJM and Squier Deluxe TR (trem model) both have angled neck pockets for sure. Note that these are the exact same guitar with just different paint jobs and plastics. There's also a non-trem version; the Deluxe ST has a stopbar behind the AOM.

As for the Vinteras, the 60s Modified Jazzmaster/Jaguar would have an angled pocket for sure since they've got AOM bridges and are effectively the updated models of the Classic Player series. I can't speak for the Vintera 60s, but I also think it would be odd for them to not fall in line with the rest of the models.

Fender really needs to step up their published specs on the guitars that have angled pockets. There are setup and trouble-shooting decisions that one would make differently if one is sure the neck pocket is angled.

The curious ones are the Classic Player and its derivatives with AOMs and closer trems, also having angled pockets. It's hard not to see those features as a bad collection of design decisions, especially if one wants to use the trem a lot. They basically maximize string-saddle friction on a fixed bridge with minimal string-saddle contact area - pretty much the opposite of what you want. It makes you wonder whether present-day Fender really understands Leo's design, or just jumped on some of the poorly thought-out "knee-jerk" solutions that techs came up with for offsets in earlier decades.