Zero fret might give me some room to work with as far as neck relief goes. What Ill need to avoid is a setup that has the bridge sitting so high that the bridge pickup cant get close to it.
If there is an issue, there's always the option of shaving the neck heel down to change the neck/body angle. Whilst I'd be OK with putting a shim under the back of the neck to increase the angle, I'd be less happy putting a shim at the front of the neck pocket to decrease it, as any gap created by the shim is going to be far more obvious.
Hmm. Hope it doesnt come to that, but I see what you mean. Removing some wood from the neck's butt edge would allow for a lower bridge and a relatively flat neck.
Just need to correct your terminology slightly (to avoid misunderstandings). Neck relief refers to the amount of curve in the neck, not to the neck/body angle.
If you shave from the front of the heel (towards the neck), then you'd increase the neck angle with regards to the body and a higher overall bridge height. Shave from the butt-end of the heel (nearest the bridge) and yes, you'd reduce the neck angle resulting in a lower overall bridge height.
One other option is to flat-shave the bottom of the heel so that you keep the same neck angle but the overall height of the neck in the pocket is is reduced, still resulting in a lower overall bridge height. This latter method is fine for small height adjustments (and easier to get right), but you wouldn't want to take off more than a couple of mm in total otherwise you run the risk of the neck screws sticking into or even partially coming through the fretboard.
But see where you are once you've set the neck relief and adjusted the bridge height.
Yeah, I was thinking out loud there about the balance between the two. Most of the time when I adjust necks its to take out some relief, so this is a slightly different ballgame. But Ill be back at it in a couple of hours, left it strung overnight to settle into place.
As far as the wiring goes, the neck minihum was surprisingly boomy. I like that very much, though I wasnt expecting it at all. The bridge pickup sounded terrible to me, but it wasnt anywhere close to where it needs to be in relation to strings. So I dont really take that as an accurate hearing. At least it means I may only have to replace one pickup. Have to test it on my big rig instead of the practice amp.
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