Luthiery is nuts!
Monday is workshop day, so I headed in with the intention of resetting the neck on ‘Tahi the Tele’ and take some images of the work for my advertising of my new Set up class.
Strings off, neck bolts out, saddles lowered, out with the caliper.
The theory is, measure the thickness of the neck block, around the B or A string position, then measure the height of the saddles from the top of the body. Take that away from the neck measurement and you get your neck pocket depth.
I could tell the pocket was too shallow, as the saddles needed to be canted far too high, but the calculations came back as:
Neck block depth = 26mm
Ideal saddle height = 13mm
Neck pocket depth => 13mm
So why is my neck pocket, at 16mm deep, looking too shallow? Angles!
What is really happening is I have a neck break angle due to the neck pocket not being parallel to the guitar top. It’s about 0.3mm deeper at one end, so the neck is leaning back. This is causing the strings to hit the frets unless the saddles are raised ‘way up’ high.
Two washers added to the neck bolts to shim the angle and saddles are down, the action is improved and Tahi was busy at band practice that night.
… forget to work the plan!
Just as I was putting the guitar back in the case, my wife came into the workshop, with a well received cup of tea, and said did you take the photos for the class? Doh!
Sometimes you have to realize the work is taking photos, not setting up a guitar!
Have a great week,
Richard
