EXA-7 neck heel

[Snivic]

Hey i recently recieved my EXA-7 kit and since this is my first set neck project i ran into something which im not too sure of.
Is the heel of the neck supposed to be curved like this?

p.s. pencil marks as so i know till where i can sand.

[FrankenWashie]

That’s a nope. It should be flat enough to match the bottom of the pocket in which it sits.
take a straight edge, lay it from the back corner to the end of the pencil line of the pocket edge and that should tell you how much of a hump you have t remove

[Snivic]

That’s a nope. It should be flat enough to match the bottom of the pocket in which it sits.
take a straight edge, lay it from the back corner to the end of the pencil line of the pocket edge and that should tell you how much of a hump you have t remove

I can safely sand away the hump? or should i get in touch with Adam on this?
Waited 2 months since it was in backorder so i don't want to rush it...

[FrankenWashie]

You’ll need to assess how bad that hump is, and how it will affect your string angle to the bridge by removing it.

if the neck sits in the pocket without leaving a gap at the front, or without rocking, and the angle to your bridge is not ridiculous then you should be okay.
if it rocks in the pocket, or leaves a gap under neath it, you are going to need to sand it out.

- identify if there is a pronounced hump
- if you have to take 1-2mm out to remove the hump, will this create issues for your bridge height and string action?
- can you confidently set up and sand the hump out and get the heel flat and level to the pocket?

the TOM bridges are fairly adjustable for height but if you’ve got to take too much off it you may bottom out the bridge adjustment and still end up with a high action on the strings. It’s a fixable, but you’ll need to be fairly careful.

[Snivic]

it was deffinitely rocking in the neck pocket and i could not get it in a good position.
the neck break angle was very big to the point that with th TOM in highest position it still needed about 4 mills to touch the straight edge.

i carefully sanded away the hump doing a few passes with a sanding block at the time and then check it again till i had almost flat surface.

The neck angle was now much better and with the bridge in lowest position i have about 2 mills till the straight edge.
now fingers crossed i didn't mess it up

[FrankenWashie]

Sounds as though you’ve sorted it.

pop it in place and then lightly clamp it to do your scale length check, while it’s clamped in place just do a check on the height of each edge of the fretboard relative to the body surface, just to be sure everything is sweet.

[Snivic]

had to replace the nut since the one it came with was bloody horrible, it was too low and the string slots were messed up.
replaced with a Graphtec nut which made so much of a difference.

Sadly it still isn't perfect, the fretwork on the neck is terrible, there were some really sharp frets wich were cut really bad.
Also about 5 frets that aren't slotted in to the neck properly.

It looks like this now but deffinitely needs more work.