Hi all first post,
Have a BC-1 kit and just done with the mock up stage when I noticed that the angle of the neck is sloping down from the body. The neck itself is strait but the mounting angle to the body is quite pronounced. If I put a strait edge on the neck the difference from the end of the neck to the back of the guitar body is 5mm.
you can see in the picture that even over this small distance there is over a mill difference . As you can see the neck already sticks out a long way from the body so I don't want to shim, and I'm not confident enough to rout the body. should I sand the neck mount back ?
If not, start by putting the neck in and clamping it down tight. You want to make sure it is seated really firmly in the pocket. Then put a strait edge on the top of the neck so that it extends out to where the bridge is. How high is the strait edge over the top of the body? Is it too high for the bridge?
This guitar uses a Gibson tune-o-matic style bridge. That's going to sit a bit higher than a Fender style bridge, so the neck needs to be at a bit of an angle. I have a bass with a standard Fender j/p bridge. The E-string saddle is about 13 mm above the wood. On another bass with with a tune-o-matic bridge, the E-string saddle is at 23 mm above the wood.
So if the neck angle works with the bridge, great! If not you probably will need to shim. I am not sure I understand your reluctance about that. Looking at the photo, it looks to me like a shim should work if you need it. You could dry fit the with a piece of veneer to see how it effects the angle. The veneer I use is 0.5 mm so you can build up in very small increments until you get to the angle you want. If you don't have veneer, some people use playing cards.
Thanks Fender3x, in the photo I had the neck screwed down so it was tight. I fitted the bridge and it was 25mm above the wood to the strings, that's with the height adjustment almost at max which means if I shim it will still be very high which is why I thought I might take a bit off the neck. but I'm a new at building so pretty unsure. I will make up a shim and see what happens.
So it's a little high but not a lot... I don't think you're going to need too much to shim it. Start with a shim that is just long enough to go over the two holes in the neck pocket that are farthest away from the bridge. That way the bridge end of the neck should be touching the neck pocket. Only the other end will be raised a little.shouldn't take more than one or two pieces of veneer to get it in the right place.
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