Repair And Restoration
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Neck Shim
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Neck Shim
I just had something happen that I can’t understand, and I am looking for theories. I was working on an ’80s Kramer. The action could not be lowered any further than about 5/64″ — as in no further downward adjustment in the Floyd Rose — so I removed the neck in case there was a shim in there. There was not. I put the neck back on and the action was now considerably higher. So off with the neck again, and I noticed the imprint of a coin. I didn’t hear anything fall out when I had removed the neck previously, but I searched high and low just in case. No coin, no picks, no shims. I ended up using a fairly thick shim in order to change the neck angle enough to get to 4/64″ action.
So, other than a vanishing coin, the only thing I can think of is that the neck heel had been held up over the area where that coin imprint is, and when the screws were put in, there was a gap between the neck and the bottom of the pocket. The legendary “air-shim.” Any other ideas?
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3 Replies
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I think you’re right. Tight screws could have totally held that neck up in the pocket. Were the screws super tight ?
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Not super tight… but the screw holes in the body would not allow the screws to pass through without a screw driver, like a lot of guitars. That might have been enough to do this. This seems to confirm why it’s a good idea to enlarge the neck mounting holes in the body of Fender and other bolt-on-neck guitars.
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You might very well be right, it happened to me a few times. As a general rule I always enlarge the holes in the bodies if I find they don’t let the screw pass through freely. And I do remove any shim material (or cancel the dreaded Fender thingy) and replace with a full-contact shim from SM when correction is needed.
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