I would sand the bottom of the pocket so that it is smoother, but not too smooth. It’s end grain, which is hard to get really smooth and the end grain has lots of open pores which give the glue something to really hold on to, so you’ll get a very strong bond.
I’d glue the shim in first, as it will be a lot easier to place it accurately. Being wedge-shaped, it can be squeezed backwards when clamped with wet glue on the top and bottom, as the glue is quite slippery until it dries to the tacky stage. Doing it in two stages, with a clamping block very slightly smaller than the shim, you can see the forward edge of the shim and make sure it goes on in the right place. I’d leave the shim sticking out very slightly over the front of the pocket so that you can sand it back flush once dry. Much easier to do that than try and line it up perfectly flat and end up with it sitting back slightly leaving a gap that will need filling.
Going to try and get this neck figured out tomorrow. Going to get the angle right, then trim back where the neck meets the body and add some basswood shims in there to recreate the line (see previous neck fitment pics). Top of this one is getting a nice deep blue dye. Think the sides and back are going to be mahogany brown accentuated with the same blue. Haven't made up my mind yet. Sitting here enjoying a beer. Cheers.
This is what the mahogany and blue look like. This is a previous experiment.
The bottom of the pocket is angled perfectly. The local hardware store has 1/16" thick basswood stock, so I grabbed a piece of that. Cut the shim, laid it in there under the neck and clamped it up. Ran the straightedge down the fretboard to check bridge height. Perfect! Glued and clamped the shim. I'll start working on where the neck meets the body tomorrow. Yes, that's the reciever box from an R/C truck that I own being used as a clamping block.
During all of the messing around, some of the plywood top layer started coming undone on the right side of the neck pocket. I noticed it from the beginning, but repairing the pocket area, I nicked it a couple times. Think I'm going to glue down what's there, and fill the missing sliver.
I'm going to rough the bottom of the pocket to give the glue some bite. The shim went in perfectly. Laid it in a little proud of the body so I could sand it back flush. Worked awesome!
Next, cut some fill pieces for the gaps between the neck and body. The neck sits in place absolutely solid, so I don't want to compromise the corner it locates scale length at. So, thin triangle wedges it is. Got lots of basswood here. Glue the block for the strap button in there while I'm at it.
Cheers everyone!
I don't like the look of those splits, but I've had slightly lesser cracks on my ES-3 build and with careful gluing and filling they've come out OK.
You can understand why sunburst (or solid) finishes were so popular with on big bodied guitars like this. It allows you to show off the nice bits of the guitar that are easy to get right, whilst covering up the neck join and maybe some dodgy top to binding areas that have filler in. And you can understand why all-blonde/clear finishes were so rare, as the woodworking and joins had to be near-perfect as mistakes couldn't be hidden.
Darkened the grain with some very mildly mixed black keda dye. Makes basswood look a bit nicer IMO. Sanding it back a bit in the morning. Still deciding on a color for this one. Maybe a nice transparent blue. Don't forget the pooch!
Starting to look like what I have in my mind. Going red on this one. Mixed up some dye this evening and had at it. Came out beautiful. Let's see how it dries. Maybe chardonnay red stain on the sides and back.
The pic looks a bit brown. It is very red, with a slight bit of blue in it to tint it towards crimson. Almost a blood red. To bad the camera doesn't pick up the true color.
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It dried to pink! Not regular pink, but HOT pink! 