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Do I need a shim?


Jono Bolton

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3 hours ago, Bridgehouse said:

Like I said, they look neat. End of.

I wasn't replying in respect of the neatness.  You chipped in a response to a comment I made to a wholly different post and I replied to that.

And moving along:

3 hours ago, Bridgehouse said:

Oh, and thanks for the sneering and patronising comment. Naturally, you know me so well that you’ll know exactly when I’ll be none the wiser. 

As it happens they were given to be by a well respected repairer for free. So yeah - duped. 

I miss the good old days when people could be civil and polite and pay a little respect to each other.

Sneering and patronising?  Good grief, I'm not even warmed up yet. 

I'm tired of all the snowflakery that exists nowadays; 'Oh, he doesn't like my wedges.  He said I wouldn't be able tell the difference between those and an old playing card.'  This isn't about being peremptory, it's an opinion borne from several experiences.  Why do we have to do this merry little dance to skirt around things for fear of constantly upsetting someone?  Man alive.  For the love of god, it's a shim.  Have some perspective, eh?

And of course, my apologies; I actually had my clairvoyance tuned down earlier this evening, otherwise I'd clearly have known the wedgie transaction hadn't involved the exchange of money. 

 

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Just now, NancyJohnson said:

I wasn't replying in respect of the neatness.  You chipped in a response to a comment I made to a wholly different post and I replied to that.

And moving along:

Sneering and patronising?  Good grief, I'm not even warmed up yet. 

I'm tired of all the snowflakery that exists nowadays; 'Oh, he doesn't like my wedges.  He said I wouldn't be able tell the difference between those and an old playing card.'  This isn't about being peremptory, it's an opinion borne from several experiences.  Why do we have to do this merry little dance to skirt around things for fear of constantly upsetting someone?  Man alive.  For the love of god, it's a shim.  Have some perspective, eh?

And of course, my apologies; I actually had my clairvoyance tuned down earlier this evening, otherwise I'd clearly have known the wedgie transaction hadn't involved the exchange of money. 

 

You assumed. And we all know what that does...

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Actually, I’ve re read my reply to your post that you refer to above.

You’ve missed the point I was making. It was suggested that you could recreate the full length StewMac shims at home with aplaying card. 

I said you couldn’t recreate them or make your own version with a playing card. 

Yes, you can create the same effect - if you look back through this thread you will see that at no point did I suggest that the StewMac shims are a better solution - or in fact that a normal shim doesn’t do the job. I’ve shimmed many a neck with a bit of card, or fibreboard, or a bit of sandpaper. 

The point I was making is that you can’t make the StewMac shims at home as they are a wedge which is less than half a mm at one end - up to a maximum of a mm at the other. Good luck trying to do that with a playing card. 

And before you say anything - no, you don’t need to do that. The shims do a neat job. I have a set. They were given to me. Would I buy them and import them from the US? No. 

No doubt I’ll get called a pedant, but I think it’s an important point for anyone reading this thread to realise that the StewMac shims aren’t just a massively expensive bag of bits of wood that are exactly the same as a card shim. 

To be honest, I have neither a positive nor negative view on their effectiveness or whether they are better or worse than a piece of card. They do however *look* better - is that worth the dollar? That’s up to the individual. 

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10 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

Why do we have to do this merry little dance to skirt around things for fear of constantly upsetting someone?  Man alive.  For the love of god, it's a shim.  Have some perspective, eh?

So shims don't have feelings? Shims don't have rights? If we cut a shim, does it not bleed?

:)

As you were, bit early for this sort of thinking, I'll go and play some bass instead.

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  • 1 month later...
On 29/10/2018 at 13:08, Jono Bolton said:

I finally got round to adjusting the action on my P Bass on Friday, and have managed to get the action  reasonably low (2-3mm at the 12th fret), however the G string could stand to be a little lower still but the saddle is currently sitting on the bridge plate. The neck is straight with a little relief. Is a shim the only way to get the action lower than it is at the moment?

 

On 29/10/2018 at 16:56, Manton Customs said:

It’s not the only fix, but it’s the easiest. Other fixes would be milling an angle in the pocket or neck heel, recessing the bridge. Or a different (lower) bridge/saddles. 

So a shim is probably your best bet. Veneer works well for this. Ideally the saddles shouldn’t bottom out until the string are resting on the fret tops (just so you know what to aim for)

I was wondering how the OP got on with the modification 👍?

I have exactly the same problem with my (otherwise superb), "Westfield" P bass. 😁

Being a total novice at fettling guitars, I was thinking:

As it's a standard "Fender type" bridge, and it's only the "G" that needs to go a bit lower, the easiest fix might be to simply file the groove in the "G" saddle a little deeper?

(That's assuming there's enough pickup height adjustment to account for the lowered string).

👍

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I would try a shim first before radically altering with a file! I always think there is a better string tension if the bridge saddles are higher rather than flat to surface and I’m sure you will benefit from the feel too. So filing the saddle may leave the saddle still quite flat and you don’t want to file the saddle away too much? Maybe put a narrow width shim wood under the top end of the neck slot. ( Old story....years ago we used to put an ice cream stick ‘shim’ in Fender bass slots). There are full size shims made by Stewmac (USA), some argue too costly or not necessary against a simple narrow width shim just across the top end etc but thats down to how you feel about it.

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5 minutes ago, mybass said:

I would try a shim first before radically altering with a file!

I agree with this. There are better ways to sort this that would leave the bass unadulterated. Always more difficult to sell a bass that's been messed about with and not in its original state. Assuming you might want to sell it, of course. But in any case mybass's comments on string tension are valid. You want a good break angle at the bridge as well as at the nut, ideally.

Edited by discreet
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Interesting, thank you fellows.

Yup, the saddles are all set pretty low, so bearing in mind what you say about saddle height / break angle, I might try some experiments with shims and/or wedges.  👍

The most I have to lose (financially) with this "Westy" project, would be the £60. I paid for it. 😁

Not wanting to stir up any hornets - but If it were an expensive bass, to be honest, there's no way I'd want to wedge it... from an engineering point of view - introducing any kind of a wedge between the body and neck can't be ideal, because (for one thing) it won't allow the screws to go back in straight. O.o

But, as I said above - this is a novice talking! :facepalm:

 

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with screws and wood 'straight' is slightly relative thing it's not like machined metal and threads and high tensile bolts so a shim is perfectly acceptable modification, well tested method and completely reversible or variable - you are only adjusting the variance that is inherent in the materials and the manufacturing process, some  high end acoustic guitars have shimmed or adjustable necks

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My old Fender Precision Lyte had a screw in the neck plate that pushed against a plate within the neck pocket and acted like a shim as a neck tilt mechanism.  I believe other basses have similar arrangements.  Clearly it isn't a problem.

Edited by Paul S
grammah an spellin
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19 hours ago, Ricky 4000 said:

Not wanting to stir up any hornets - but If it were an expensive bass, to be honest, there's no way I'd want to wedge it... from an engineering point of view - introducing any kind of a wedge between the body and neck can't be ideal, because (for one thing) it won't allow the screws to go back in straight. O.o

For most situations a business card about 1/4 the length of the neck pocket is sufficient to give a big enough change of angle of the neck to sort out most problems. The average business card is between 0.333mm and  0.5mm  thick (and will compress slightly when the neck screws are tightened up). The only bass I have with a bolt-on neck has a pocket 90mm long. My back of an envelope calculations give an angle of between 0.2° and 0.3°. IME there is far more play in the holes going through the body than that so I wouldn't worry about changing the neck angle with a shim.

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Thanks for bearing with me, fellows - that all makes good sense. 👍

I'm conscious of not wanting to hijack the OP's thread with my "thoughts" (it's just that we seen to be in the same last known position).

In readiness - I've cut up some pieces of modern 0.3mm PTFE shim material (from a Lidl 4pt milk container).

Wish me luck, I'll be back in time for tea and medals! 😁

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