As most of you will have gathered by now all the parts builds so far were about as close to a real Fender as a Gucci handbag on a stall in Oxford St, but I was slowly making my way up towards Bond Street where the real stuff was. I was just about to turn that corner (in Earls Court actually) when I came across a Right Handed 50s Classic Vibe Maple Neck just like the one on Blondie, Modern C, big chunky frets and lovely tuners - Perfect. So I grabbed it and on it went.
As it happened the neck pocket was perfectly square but just a fraction too wide. So in goes my 1mm shim on the non cutaway side to shift the neck across slightly and it all fitted together perfectly. I dropped a Stewmac .25 degree shim into the pocket to give it some lift, since the bridge plate with the extra copper ground behind it was quite fat, but it had reduced the angle from the extreme where it had been with the Rosewood neck.
I also shimmed the front of the pocket to get complete contact on the joint between neck and body at the heel in all dimensions which ensured setting the neck back just that extra touch and since Teles have a square pocket that worked well. I had also taken the high gloss polysomethingorother shine off the neck giving it a much faster feel, something I hadn't had the nerve to do on the Blonde one.
Strung it and did a quick setup - the harmonics pulled in, even if still pretty tight on the back of the bridge (so it was a body and neck out of spec issue that I was dealing with on the initial problem - hardly surprising) but this action on this guitar was low, and I mean really mean low..........
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