So a little update from the weekend.

No new pics just yet, because frankly, I wasn't really inspired photographically by a whole bunch of filing and sanding and freaking out and then being calm again.

So, "hardwood" lives up to its name doesn't it. I'm not sure what the neck is made from, but it smells nice, and looks like it could be mahogany, but it's tough going with a file and sandpaper when you're trying to be delicate. File, sand, refit neck, check. Repeat seventy billion times.

If you are reading this thinking "I could totally do that", please seriously consider doing it on a guitar you don't care about as practice first. I think I'm all good, I've taken away enough material, and critically, at the right angle, to get what I hope to be a great action with decent range of adjustment. I might even get a good looking joint yet. But there was plenty of stress knowing I could remove, but never replace if I went too far.

So now the neck joint is very loose, due to removing up to around 2mm of wood (I know it doesn't sound like much, but it took an age) so I'm measuring up the shims I'll need to ensure the neck is a firm fit in the pocket (which I didn't touch a apart from glue removal). This was always going to happen though so I'm prepared. I've glued slivers of bamboo to parts of the neck joint and am sanding them down to thickness (again, sand, refit, sand, refit, sand, refit) to determine exactly where I need to shim for best results. I'm using bamboo to figure it out, as it's far easier to sculpt quickly. When I'm satisfied I know how and where to shim the neck joint, I'll replace the bamboo shims with hardwood before re-gluing the neck. I don't know what wood yet, but something less squishy than bamboo anyway.