Neck Fit on RD-1 Kit

Hey all,

This is my first kit build. I just received my RD-1 kit shipped overseas to Chicago, IL, USA. Arrived in less than a week in good shape! Cutouts are clean and the basswood body has a decent grain, though I may still be spraying some opaque nitro finish.

When slotting the neck into the body, the fit is very tight and snug but the fingerboard doesn't make contact with the body, as if the pocket isn't deep enough maybe. Perhaps screwing the neck into place might lower it, or maybe it isn't an issue at all. I'm not quite sure to be honest, so I figured I should ask those of you who know what's going on haha. ;)

I took some quick photos to show:
https://imgur.com/a/3bOPIol

Thanks in advance!

Hey mate, that looks pretty normal to me. Often they are like that to accomodate a pickguard. In this case it will be sitting up to allow enough adjustment on the Tune-o-matic style bridge. If you had it sitting further down you would need to angle the neck back from the body to get enough clearance.

Before you drill any holes or anything for the neck, clamp it in place and install the bridge (just wrap tape around the posts until they fit in the holes, don't put the inserts in until you are done finishing), then If you temporarily install the high and low e tuners, you can run some string down to the bridge and check the height of the bridge and also that the neck is true to the bridge by seeing that the gap to each edge of the fret board is the same.

Also if you are posting from desktop, there is an option on imgur for a 'BBcode' if you copy and paste that your image will show up in the thread. Not sure how to do it on mobile but there is probably a way.

Your pic
https://i.imgur.com/CsV28KO.jpg

what I mean with the string

https://i.imgur.com/EIjqmYD.jpg

Fantastic! Thank you Sonic Mountain, that's exactly what I needed to hear to get started! I will be creating a build diary and working through the manual as I go.