First Build TB-4

[nanopico]

Got my TB-4 (also ordered a TL-1HA that I haven't started yet) a couple months ago.
I have to say the quality actually surprised me.
So I got it all finished. Sorry I didn't document the process. I was way to focused on it and having a lot of fun with it.
I only had two small issue in the assembly which were easy to resolve. The first was the location of the hole for the wiring. When the wires go from the cavity of the bridge pickup to the control cavity, the neck pickup wire prevented the bridge pickup from sitting correctly. That was an easy fix by just drilling a new hole for the neck pickup wire. Super easy.
The other is how the hole is cut for the output jack. The jack fits in real tight. So it's just a pit of work to get it in correct. I didn't have to do anything with that. I was actually expecting to have to do more work than that to get it assembled so this really impressed me.

Once it was together though, it looks like the break angle for the neck may not be correct.
I've got the neck adjusted flat and all, but even with the bridge set as low as it will go the action get's pretty high rather quickly. I'd expect that with bridge set this low it would be fretting out and the strings be practically sitting on the frets.
It's much higher than I'm used to on my other bases.
I'd rather have a semi decent string height where the bridge isn't at either end of it's extremes so that I still have adjustment room.

So my thought is to either put a shim between the neck and body or sand the neck to adjust the angle. I feel like actually sanding the neck will probably lead to making it worse as I fear making a mistake on that.

Anyone have thoughts on how to address this? Shim or sand neck or is there another options I'm missing?

I love the feel of this thing at the first few frets and the balance and weight.

I attached a photo of the finished bass and an attempt to show the string height. Sorry if it's not great. I'm not great with a camera.

[Simon Barden]

As it's a bolt-on, I'd definitely try a neck shim first. Just a small piece of veneer, or a piece of hard plastic (like an old credit/loyalty card) in-between the screws at the body end of the neck pocket. Use multiple pieces if necessary but between 0.5mm to 1mm should sort you out. If you then want to sand the neck heel, you'll know the angle you'll need to achieve. But a shim works for most people and can easily be changed if necessary in the future.

Nice looking bass.

[JimC]

The shim is the safe option, and I doubt there'll be any audible difference. I think that's a good route to go.

If you did decide to alter the neck, which is perhaps best only where a shim is not a good choice then my preference, FWLIW, is to scrape the neck with a sharp Stanley knife blade rather than sand it. I reckon its much easier to keep it truly flat and you have better control. My other recommendation if you do decide to alter the neck is a modelers set square. You can get neat little stainless steel ones that don't cost much and are just the right size for fiddling round with guitars. If you need to taper a shim then a Stanley knife blade is also good for that.

[nanopico]

Thanks for the replies.
I think the shim makes sense.
After posting and looking closer and thinking it through, trying to alter the neck doesn't make too much sense as I'm not sure there is enough material to properly remove and get the right angle to get it to sit where I want it so adding a shim makes much more sense.