Paper neck shims

[WindyCity100]

I don't have any issue with leaving them in. Right now, I'm just following the good advice I've read here regarding upgrading a MIM Strat. Shielding and a new trem to go in sometime in the next couple weeks. I thought brass might be better simply due to the density vs. paper/cardboard. Someone here used the phrase "silk purse from a sow's ear"...that's where I'm at now, just tryin' to do the easy things that will put some life into the ol' girl. I have a brother who's a machinist, so he can hook me up with the shim stock, which frankly, is why it occured to me first.

Off topic a bit, but the guy at the local guitar store told 300-400 $$$ for a fret job on me neck (new frets and full set up on them). Does this seem high or just my ignorance on the subject?

[Fab4]

Off topic a bit, but the guy at the local guitar store told 300-400 $$$ for a fret job on me neck (new frets and full set up on them). Does this seem high or just my ignorance on the subject?

Is that Canadian dollars or something? That seems mighty high. Geeze, you can get a whole new NECK (frets included) from Warmoth.com for $135 US.

[mrmudcat]

That is the Chicago mark-up


To high if ya ask me !!!:

[Andy]

Interesting,seems like paper(wood pulp) would be a more natural connection between the 2 pieces of wood. ar does brass resonate better?

[WindyCity100]

Dunno...just going off the premise that brass makes good nuts (I heard) and the whole high-mass trem block thing. The more solid the substance, the better the "connectivity", at least in my enfeebled mind.

[Big K]

I've used thin picks before to not only shim a neck but also to shim one side of a nut and they seemed to work fine but I may have been happy to stop the buzzing

[Fab4]

Dunno...just going off the premise that brass makes good nuts (I heard) and the whole high-mass trem block thing.

Brass was the go-to material for a while in the '70s and early '80s - I had a Strat with a brass pickguard for a long time (weighed a ton) - but it has since fallen out of favor. Brass can increase sustain and bite a little, but it seems to work at the expense of tonal complexity. That's why you won't find many custom shop or boutique guitar makers using brass nuts or bridge blocks anymore (although I'll bet some Fretter can point out an exception). The trend now seems to be toward lighter materials, lighter guitars, more resonance and less pure sustain. The thinking is, a resonant guitar vibrates more freely and can be induced into Santana-like sustain more easily as it reacts to the sound coming from the amp.

That said, I doubt it will make much difference what material you use as a neck shim, so I'd say:
1. Try what you have.
2. See how you like it.
3. Try something else.
4. See if you can tell a difference.
5. Use what works best and/or is easiest to get and to work with.

[Bloozcat]

Yes, Dan Erlewine's Guitar Repair book is an indispensible tool to have before you start monkeying around with the neck/action.

The level of the fretboard and frets is different from the angle of the neck in relation to the guitar body. The tongue of the neck should "fall away" towards the bridge as it fits inside the neck pocket. This creates the necessary angle to prevent fret buzz on the higher frets. If the neck doesn't have the necessary taper to create this "falling away" (which is actually a very, very slight taper), then shims are used to compensate.

In a perfect world, the neck and body will be exactly mated to each other. But we're talking about Leo Fender's invention here. Leo was the Eli Whitney of guitars when it came to interchangable parts. Close enough is all that's required, not perfection. Tollerances held within acceptable standards, not precise standards. Now, set neck guitars are another matter altogether....

[markb]

Dunno...just going off the premise that brass makes good nuts (I heard) and the whole high-mass trem block thing. The more solid the substance, the better the "connectivity", at least in my enfeebled mind.

Find a 1980s acoustic with a brass nut. Play some open string stuff and see what brass does for tone. Brass hardware was a fad for a while in the days of stripy neck-through Alembic lookalikes. Remember these?



Traditionally Fender have used bone or plastic for nuts and steel for saddles (on strats). They've been using a die-casting alloy for trem blocks for years. American Standard and Series strats (1987-2007) also use die-cast alloy saddles. I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that there's very little reason to change any of these parts but, as always it's down to the owner's tastes.

[oldguy]

I guess I'm getting old, but I don't remember a lot of those little white rectangles with red X 's in them....................