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Just came back from the hardware store and got a card scraper - woooooow what a tool! I've been walking past these for a thousand times, always thinking they are some kind of spreader or something. Quickly toyed around with it on scrap wood and gosh, why haven't I bought one of these years ago? Thanks for the advice, guys!
Wanted to get one of these tiny metal square edges, but they all were too big. So I ordered some online but it will take 2 weeks. So I'm now scavenging through my Letterpress drawers to find something adequate, I think I'll have some filler or spacing material that will work out.
Also searching for chalk. I know I had some, but where... lol :D
Anyway, I hope I can make the neck fit better, looking forward to use those scrapers :)))
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So, got some chalk, but.. I don't know if this is working?
Put the chalk in the routed cavity, put the neck in, but... almost no chalk on the neck.
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What does that mean? Do I have to flatten the parts where there is NO chalk or is the chalk just not transferring properly?
Oh and please don't mind the little block I attached to the end. It's just so I have more surface to glue. It is flat and small enough not to interfere with the fit. I didn't worsen the fit at least :D
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You get the chalk where the pocket touches the neck, and those area are where the wood is a bit higher than the rest of the neck or pocket, and so stopping full contact.
The neck itself looks reasonably flat, but it's worth checking the faces with a straight edge and holding it up to a light to look for gaps to confirm that. If you can see gaps that appear in between the areas that you've got chalk marks on, then you know those chalk marked areas are high spots and can be sanded/scraped down. Once the neck edges are level, then I'd put the chalk on the neck (I'd use a darker colour if you've got one) and see where the marks on the pocket are, as they will be high spots that need reducing.
Wipe the chalk off each time, so you don't get get confused with what's old and what's new.
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Hm, that's not working either. There is just almost no chalk transferred.... I guess I'm too dumb for this :confused:
As I still can't put my finger on where exactly the problem is, and I don't have much to lose anyway, I started scraping the backside of the neck with the card scraper to remove material evenly and bring it down in height a bit.
I'm not scraping the inside of the pocket because getting a new neck from China is easier than getting a new body (as I already put quite some work into the stain).... So far, it looks like it could work. I'm not a hundred percent sure the neck is even (meaning the strings on the bass and treble side are even across the fretboard) or if one side is higher. It's hard to say when it's clamped in and impossible to say if it isn't.
So I'm taking the risk, as I could still adjust a tiny bit on the bridge and with the nut shape.
I'll glue the neck this weekend maybe, so then I'll see if I totally screwed it :-)
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What you might like to try is to cover the pocket with chalk and scrape very gently and see if the chalk comes off pretty evenly over large areas. or just on various small points. If the latter then the neck pocket is uneven, and no amount of treatment of the neck could help. And you could do the same thing to the neck of course.
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I *think* I finally understood how the neck angle works. Better late than never I guess.
The neck pocket has the angle and it's routed like a "ramp". The neck itself should be dead flat, laying on the ramp, and therefore be slightly angled backwards. The neck itself should also be dead flat on the top, with the fretboard being rounded. This is all probably very obvious you will yawn, but I guess I'm a person that needs to take everything apart to understand how it works.
So what I did was completely measure every single bit of the neck heel, fretboard and "tongue", and then calculating the the height I would need to have it sit flat. In regards to my calculations, there was 1 mm too much on the side with the gap, so while the neck heel was dead flat, it was somewhat tilted. So I used my scraper to remove 1mm of wood (dayum, this was so fast with the scraper!) and still trying to have it very even with a 90° edge.
Then, I shimmed the most uneven side of the neck pocket with a piece of veneer and now the neck sits pretty snug. There is still a little overshoot in the corner but not too much.
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I can now live with the tiny gap under the fretboard that is left. Will test later if clamping it down already closes it up or if I need to adjust a tiny little bit.
I *think* the fretboard itself (and therefore the bass side of the neck) is still a tiny bit higher on the left but I don't know if this is probably even intentional? Or if it would even be noticeable when playing?
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It won't be intentional but it happens a lot with these kit guitars. Often the main part of the neck is flat but the fingerboard itself is either slightly angled or it's been radiused unevenly, so one side is lower than the other.
A vert small angle is not something you notice when playing, as it's just like having the guitar body angled very slightly differently when you play.
It's hard to get rid of that small gap without attacking the top of the neck join, but that would move the neck back a bit too far to allow the edge of the pickup ring to sit on the forward edge of the pickup rout.
