Just received a ES-1GT and had a quick look over it and noticed the neck tongue is not level. On the far side it's not as bad like it's been cut on a angle across the tongue. Don't know whether to sand it down level but I'm thinking if I do will the bridge be able to go low enough to get the action right. Suppose check it in the day light by clamping the front of the tongue down. Only thing is it's not going to clamp down evenly along the tongue to get a true gauge of what's going on.
In the photo from above you can see tell tale pattern on the timber showing how it's cut.
Looks rather like they caught the end on a belt sander after levelling it.
Apart from sending it back, I'd either stick some maple veneer on and sand it flat, or sand the the whole base of the heel down flat. You may find that the neck angle is a bit shallow anyway, I know mine was/is, so it may well benefit from a sand to tweak the angle. But it's not that easy to do whilst keeping the heel perpendicular to the sides of the neck.
That’s what I’m thinking Simon. Near impossible to keep it perpendicular. Might be able to make measurements of the sides of the tongue while sanding down. At the moment it’s 21mm thick at the end where it’s tapered down. 20mm thick where it’s glued to the neck.
Any overall reduction in tongue height will remove the same height at the bridge, so the neck angle will need to be increased very slightly to compensate.
I'd probably try and rig up a belt sander (with a fine grit belt) clamped down on its side, and stick the edge of the neck to a flat piece of wood with double-sided tape to keep things angled correctly when offered up to the sander. You'd still need to be very careful and it would be very easy to overdo it.
Well, a flat piece of wood held vertically then, with sandpaper double-sided taped to it, and still the neck held to a flat piece of wood, but its a bit harder to keep everything flat as you have to move the neck backwards and forwards to sand, rather then just push the neck towards the sander, which lends itself to a slight curve at the ends.
The possible issues with a replacement neck are that it might not have been cut from the same routing jig pair as the original body and neck (if the factory use more than one jig), so the fit may not be quite as good.
But gluing on some veneer and hand sanding the veneer (again using sandpaper on a flat board) is probably worth trying before sending it back. Advise Pit Bull of the problem (I don't think they'd want it back as it can't be used as it is on another guitar), but you might as well have a go at fixing it before they send out another one. Which may well have to come from the factory with a long delay.
I normally buy marquetry packs of veneer from Amazon. Mixed veneers, and whilst some are rather too soft to use on guitars, you normally get a reasonable amount of useable pieces.
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