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Where is everyone getting their shim stock from? Looking to buy blanks in bulk - mainly for electric neck pockets. Thanks!

Good afternoon all. I have started the process of removing all the binding from the old Country Gentleman and it's going well. I did discover after removing the strings that the neck is pretty loose and moves around quite a bit (no surprises there). I removed the black plug on the back side of the body then removed the large regular (slot) screw that holds the neck in place. I thought the neck would just slide out considering how loose…

A Gagliano Jumbo probably made by Kay in the 1950's. It looks like this had a previous neck reset based on the shims and some sloppy chisel work. I removed the 14th and 15th frets because I had read that these might have a straight tenon. I didn't need to drill any holes for heat, as the spruce shims both split in half after the fretboard extension was released. The dovetail is about 11mm long, the pocket is 14mm deep, and the 15th fret…

Hey everyone, I wanted to do a bit of a follow up on a repair I'm doing. A customer brought in a Seagull acoustic guitar that had been dropped, causing the heel block to separate. I managed to get that glued back together with pleasing results, however I did need to take the neck off by removing the two bolts which thread into the heel block, and unglued the fretboard extension. All went well here, although I'm left with a situation whe…

Hi Folks. I have a new Gibson L-00 retro on the bench. It came in because the saddle had pulled forward and was extremely loose in the slot. the saddle was a narrow affair measuring out at 3/32. It had buzzing issues as well because saddle was low and neck angle is actually high (straight edge is 5/32 above bridge). Previous looth tried to correct by shimming saddle but recommended me for bridge work. I re-slotted the saddle slot wi…

I'm nearing the end of my first build. I have about 1 mm gap above the top at the end of the fingerboard extension. I've read and seen some guidance to clamp that down while gluing the extension. Others seem to build in a wedge-shaped shim - although it seems that is mostly done with neck resets and not new builds. A straight edge on the frets is just slightly above the top of the bridge so I think my neck angle is good. What are your t…

Hello -- I am trying to joint a Tele-style mahogany neck blank. I have a Metabo planer in good condition, but no jointer. I secured the c. 40 mm thick blank to a flat plywood sled and shimmed it well. It's hot-glued in place, and absolutely no rocking from any corner or edge. But as I plane it down, I still have about 1 mm difference from one end of the blank to the other when I put a straightedge on the surface (see photo, with backlig…

First time here on the forums, not sure how often I'll check in, but thought this the best place to post it. Was playing with an idea proposed by Buck Van Laarhoven on a parametric model for bolt-on neck shims, and found the formulas I wrote up translated easily to Taylor and conventional acoustic neck joints so decided to add boxes for those as well. I'm not well versed in Google Sheets, but couldn't see a way to upload the file direct…

I have searched the forums and was not able to find any discussion about 3D printing neck shims. This made me wonder if with the proper density of infill, may be a viable option. Or is this just taboo? appreciate hearing others thoughts on this

Hi Everyone, I’m working through building my first set neck electric, an LP Jr. I had some build questions… - if you’ve built these Gibson style set necks before, did you cut the neck pocket straight and angle the heel of the neck? Or did you cut the pocket at the angle and keep the bottom of the heel straight? I’m attempting to cut the pocket at an angle, and it isn’t the easiest thing to do, I’m finding out. First, I’ve had some moveme…

This is an early 80's Jester. The only identification is the label inside which appears to show the model number as ACW160, though I've only seen reference to model W160 online. There is scant information about Jester guitars online, and some of it seems inconsistent. This was most likely made in either Holland or Romania. Online information indicated that this would have a dowelled neck joint, but it clearly doesn't. This was a very di…

Finishing up a new cutaway acoustic. I thought I had it right before finishing, but now that the finish is done and the neck is bolted on, a straight edge on the frets is 3/32" over the top of the bridge. Can I work with that, or do I need to either add a shim under the bridge, or just cut a new bridge? Any advice would be greatly appreciated... Paul in Chicago

This came to me all smashed up and I rebuilt it with a new sitka top. The neck was bolted on with the fingerboard extension glued to the (original) cedar top. There is a block under the extension with the end of the truss rod running through it. The bolt heads are recessed in the neck block and in another example, I've seen there is a label over the neck block to hide the bolt heads. I don't know if the two brass shims next to the bolt…

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 coi…

I have a Hoffner bass with a neck that broke loose. The main problem seems to be that that neck was loosely fit and was relying on a thick layer of glue at the bottom of the neck pocket to hold it in place, it looks like some shimming is in order. My question is about getting the neck angle correct. With the bridge thumbscrews at the bottom of their adjustment, should a straight edge on the finger board touch the top of bridge, or the to…

I have a new client with 100+ shredder type guitars. He gave me a couple of the easier ones to work on. The first is an ESP which fretted out with bends up above the 12th fret. I thought it was just the 2/64th" low action, but the last two frets seemed really high. I suspected there was a shim in the pocket, and yeah, there was. The bottom of the neck heel is deformed where the shim was. The shaded/dirty area at the bottom edge. Not den…