Neck pocket question for non-PBG telecaster kit

Hello,

I am a newbie to guitar kit building and I have a question about the neck pocket of my new telecaster kit.

As you can see in the attached photo, there is a slight gap on the bass side bottom of the neck. I have checked the distance from the top of the fretboard to the body on both the treble and bass sides, and it seems that the bass side is about 1-1.5mm taller than the treble side.

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Is this a problem? If it is, would it be possible for a beginner to fix such an issue like this, or would it be better to return the kit?

It is not an issue of the neck not having enough space on the bass side, as it does not fit snug and even when moved the gap is still there.

I would appreciate any information. Thank you.

Welcome to the forum, there will be plenty of advice and assistance from the folks on here.

What I would do in this case if you intend to finish the kit rather than return is work out if the problem is neck or body and the go and have a chat to the local woodworking shop to get the neck heel thicknesses square or the pocket routed square and then shim to requirement.

If there's a bit of sideways slop build up the sides of the pocket with copper tape ( slug & snail barrier tape from your local hardware store is the same as guitar shielding tape but much cheaper )

Thanks for the reply! Does that mean that the issue is serious enough that I should either try to return it or fix it w/ a woodworking shop? I saw that slop on the sides is relatively okay, but I could not find a conclusive answer to whether slop on the bottom (like mine) is okay or not.

Could be the camera lens but that side of the pocket looks slightly higher.
Measure it and see.
Also some folk tend to discard the black plastic plate.
Perhaps you could trial leaving it out and see if the neck gets pulled further into the pocket.

Otherwise determine whether it's worth getting a replacement.

cheers, Mark.

Thanks for the reply! I just did measurements on the body and the neck and the culprit is most definitely the neck. The body is the same height at both the treble and bass sides, while the neck is taller on the bass side by 1 mm. There also seems to be a bit of a curvature going on at the bottom of the neck.

If the problem is with the neck, would it be fixable by a beginner? I'm beginning to lean toward returning the kit as I'm worried that it might be out of my league to tackle these problems.

If it's beyond your capabilities then a replacement (or a refund) would be the best bet.
If you think it within your ability, perhaps a hefty discount (if you could convince the seller) would make it worthwhile.

cheers, Mark.

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It seems like the bottom of the neck has some sort of taper on both sides... I'm guessing this is not normal, right?
Maybe getting a new kit that doesn't have this problem would be the best way to go haha.

mark a pencil line all around the neck heal from the lowest point. That way you can see where the neck is thickest and how much it changes. Then simply use a sanding block to get it flat. Use a hard or firm block and go with care and you should be able to square up the heal

Hello, I have actually proceeded with building using this kit. I found that the heel part of the neck was flush with every point in the neck pocket. There seemed to be a small tooling/sanding error around the area with the gap, which is the reason why it looks like there is a gap in the neck. All the important contact points, however, seemed to be flush, so I decided to proceed with building with this guitar.

I however, have a different question. I started to dye my guitar using leather aniline dyes. I left it for about 16 hours, and began applying tru oil to the back of the guitar. I found, however, that some of the dye rubbed onto the rag. How long must one wait to apply tru oil after dying a guitar? Here are pictures of the front and back

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Hard to say - if the Tru Oil is a solvent for the dye, then it will happen every time... Tru oil contains mineral spirits, so if the dye is oil based then you have issues...
Read the label on the dye - and remember it is designed for leather, and check the cure times. But if it is transferring to your rag then I’d assume you would want a minimum 24 hours. If there are no time issues, give it a week. If Tru Oil pulls it up after that amount of time then tru oil is possibly not for this project

Thanks for the reply! I'm pretty sure the dye is alcohol or water based, so it is not an issue of tru-oil being a solvent for the dyes. It kinda sucks that I'll have to wait a week but that seems like the best way to go. Hopefully it's dry by then!

I've done two builds using dye. One was water-based, the other alcohol-based.

The water-based one (ash) I finished with wipe-on poly, the alcohol-based one (maple veneer over basswood) I finished with tru oil.
In both instances there was transference of dye to the cloth with the first couple of coats. The ash body would have dried for at least a week IIRC; and the maple veneer/basswood (with binding) would have dried for at least several weeks due to another build going on.

I should also mention that I went over both with a very fine synthetic abrasive pad and wiped them down with a clean dry cloth before applying any top coat anticipating that there may be some lifting of the dye (and also to knock back any nibs of grain lift from the moisture of the dye) and it still happened.

That being said, I think it's just part of using dyes. In both my cases they were single colour so not a burst or transition of colours, so it was not an issue. I didn't have any problem with uneven colouring either.

If it were me in your case, I would wipe my tru oil in straight lines going in the direction of lighter colour (the pink) to darker (the purple) for the first four coats or so (or until you stop seeing dye on your cloth). Don't go in a circular motion or you risk just smudging the two colours and not getting a nice transition/fade effect.

Just my 2 cents.

These are the two guitars I referenced in the above post: TLA-1 ash tele (water-based dye/ poly) and PRS-1TS (analine alcohol-based dye/Tru Oil)

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Originally Posted by McCreed

These are the two guitars I referenced in the above post: TLA-1 ash tele (water-based dye/ poly) and PRS-1TS (analine alcohol-based dye/Tru Oil)

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Thanks a lot for the detailed reply! Wow, that kind of sucks that the lifting happened even after all the steps you went through! I'll try to apply the tru-oil using our method.

Nonetheless, those are some beautiful guitars!

Thanks koolimy.

I should also mention that the only reason I "anticipated" that there may be some lifting of the dye, was because when I handled the body of the tele after drying, the dye still rubbed off on my hands! (that was my first dye job)

It wasn't because I'm super clever or smart!

Those are the little lessons we learn along the way.

LOL, I'm actually finding the same thing, dye is rubbing off onto a dry cloth! It really might be one of the quirks of using dyes.