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My first real guitar – This was in 1978, a choice between flying lessons and a guitar. I never regretted my choice, but maybe I could have had a better guitar? The small music shop only had two guitars in the relevant price range, this one, and a black Ibanez. Strat was almost double the price. This one won, because it felt “softer”. I did not know anything about guitars or playing, in retrospect, the Ibanez might well have been the better choice, and it was much cheaper too. But it was heavy and hard. Well, after all these years, I now know it felt like, well, an Ibanez. Knowing what I know now, I would have bought all the Ibanez’z (Ibani?) that came my way. I missed out on a good one with a practice amp, because I already had two electrics, I did not need another. It was going for a good price. Yes, I needed a good whack on the head. It probably was black, in Gibson SG shape, and made in Japan. Sigh.
My guitar played well, I even practiced my classical guitar songs on it, many, many hours of playing (well, I thought so at the time) in my grubby hands, and it was lusted after by someone who could play guitar. After twelve years of playing it, I read that one can (should?) adjust the action, dip and intonation. So started this story. The action was about what one would expect from a nylon string… The truss rod adjuster is at the back of the neck, the salesman said back then. Off with the neck. Oh? The truss rod adjusting slot is under the serial number plate. OK. The truss rod was totally loose. Easy to fix, dip set within “spec”. Action too high. Lower bridges as far as possible. Action too high. Over the years it progressed to filing the bottom of the string bridge seats to lower them, the next problem was caused by the hinge being in front of the “bridge” point: The strings now bridged out on the front of the bridge blocks. So, I filed the front a bit. Sanded off as much material as I could from underneath the Bridge holder, even cut a slot in the No 1 string bridge to clear the string. The photo of the bridge shows the result of my misguided efforts. Action still too high. Looking at the geometry, and the funny neck curvature, it was clear that altering the neck angle would result in more problems than the one I try to solve.

Reading about neck shims on the web, I realised my solution was not in altering the neck angle, but in lifting the entire neck a bit. Off with the neck, scraped off the varnish ridges, ran a sanding block over the heel. Scraped the neck pocket in the body, but going down to bare wood is not going to happen.

Seeing as I have many diverse hobbies, I do have on hand 0.4 mm ply. And 0.8 mm, and 1.0 mm… I figured, bridges are bottommed out lower than what they really could go, need at least 0.4 mm reduction in string height at fret 15, try the 0.8 mm ply. Which measured 0.7 mm. The shim came out OK, I tapered it a bit to alter the neck angle (pushing down the head, the neck does have a bent-up angle to the body) as well as to have more shim on No 1 side than on No 6.

The infernal neck-screw-plate fits only one way, front is front, but not indicated thus, it looks symetrical, but is not by 0.5 mm. Punched a dot on the front side, and removed the hard chrome from the rear to clear the serial number plate. All this explained why the truss adjuster slot was angled rear to front. They could have found a better solution, surely?
Oh, yes, when bolting on the neck for the ?? time, please see that the strings are all parallel, not twisted. Oh well, too much string on the tuners anyway, so, loossen, snip off a bit, re-string. They are sure to snap now, there were some inexplicable kinks and overlaps. Almost as if somebody else than me did the last restring.
This whole session was turning into an exploration of choice words and phrases not to be used in public.
With the shim in place, and everything else about where it should be, I could lift the bridge blocks again. I also took the liberty of screwing out the pole-pieces to “radius” the pickups. So? Well, honemoon phase now, but the action is now set closer to what it should have been, for the first time in almost 40 years of ownership. It does play better. Unplugged, it now has more, well, presence? In fact, it sounds like a, well, Black Ibanez unplugged. Solid, hard. Probably a better neck-body contact. Or could the subtle alteration in geometry cause that? Just looking at it lying on the bed, it looks, well, straighter. It looks like it should be fun to play. Imagination, surely, I do not smoke at all.
If I was serious about setting up this guitar for real use, I would junk the bridge setup, drill new string-through-body holes, fit a bridge much like the Strats have. Or make a suitable one. Huh, hinge in front. Come on. All about sting break angle over the bridge I guess. The guitar has a sound that begs for a tremolo system. Which I cannot use. If I was serious about etc., the neck would have to go in for a re-build. The fingerboard needs a plane and re-profile, which implies a re-fret, and re-finish. Since frets are still very good, and the varnish on the fingerboard is not even marked, with neat fillets all along the frets, no cracks, no.

The photo shows fret 2 – 4. Yes, they are flat-topped. No, I cannot hear the bad intonation it is supposed to cause. Yes, they show wear. No, they are still very good. Almost 40 years on them. More than 10 minutes’ playing, all in all.
The zero fret does have wear slots in it by now. No, I shall fit a hard shim cap over it if it comes to that. Funny how a neck can take on all the wrong shapes – the dip is more to the body end of the neck than the middle, not at fret 8 at all, the last few frets do not angle down, and the first three frets do not follow the general “dip” line – sort of straight, dip, up. Which means, setting up the guitar as well as possible is not going to happen without a lot of filework on the frets. Which will end in a neck re-do, which is not on the cards.

But still, it is better than ever in it’s life. And I still enjoy it. More now, after the shim job. Lesson? Well, it would have helped if I knew something about guitars back then, if the internet existed, if I had guidance. The salesman just wanted to sell a guitar. Take note of symptoms, think about it. Look at problems, make informed choices to solve them. Gather as much information as you can, sift through it. Or, just go to someone who knows, throw money at the problem, and solve it. And play some really, really good guitars to get a feel for what is “right”. Have a good player show you the ropes and options. Sure. Being a long way from anywhere, I am on my own. The bridge do not look too well anymore, but that is what ignorance does for you. But, I am slowly crawling along the path to Guitar Heaven. Now, I just need to learn to play a simple tune or two before I am too old to do so (I see Keith rolling stone still plays a Telecaster in public, so when exactly would be too old?). Let’s see: Strings are called EADGCE. No, EBDGBE. No, ??






modulator
Extremely interesting.. and congrats on breathing new life into a old dog..

a few things, what where the symptoms and what made you realize that it would be better to lift the neck as opposed to increasing the neck angle?

  • V8 replied to this.

      By now I'm sure you've found the shergold fan site? https://www.shergold.co.uk/

      I'm a fan of the over engineered, under-designed nature of the bass I had (sold it late last year). Though the saddles also had me swearing - either remove the bridge or remove a pickup to set intonation...umm, right!

      But nothing, just nothing sounded like it, those pickups are incredible. If I ever see one sans instrument, I'll buy it in a heartbeat.

      Great work on the shim (way neater than my effort!) . I had to do exactly the same, full pocket shim to raise the neck up to get it a bit more playable. On mine, I suspect that the Obeche wood compressed slightly over the years - though if yours was never good and you got it near new then perhaps it was inconsistency in manufacture?

      The frets on mine also were very flat (no crown), very low, and rather narrow - quite vintage I gather. I quite liked the feel!

      I'd have this over the black ibby - though I'm really not a ibby fan. Some of the 70's knockoff's were okay, but the shergold is way more an original idea (electronics) and interesting!

      The bits look in great condition - she's sure had some love of the years - nice one!

        Tuckstir what where the symptoms and what made you realize that it would be better to lift the neck as opposed to increasing the neck angle?

        If I can't get a lower action from adjusting saddles/nut and minor truss rod adjustments then I start thinking about full neck shim to bring the neck up to the strings.

        Some guys don't like the saddle screws digging into their hands, so they'll tilt the neck forward a bit (shim in the back of the pocket) and then raise the saddles up to compensate. I've done it to try and get the string closer to parallel with the fretboard, Though I prefer the action playing slightly higher at the 12th fret than perfectly flat all over the neck.

          I would have to sketch out the neck profile to illustrate, but enough to say that the neck took a set way back when, with the first three frets not following the dip, i.e. all three level and not 2 lower than 1, 3 lower than 2. If I tilt back the neck, the strings will "fret out" on them, and I will have to lower them. But then, on the body side, I will have to lower the last frets as well, due to them lying level and not increasing in distance from the strings either. Tilting back the neck would lower the action at the 15th fret, yes, but too much at fret 3, and 18 up. The rotation point was needed at the nut, not at the front of the heel. Tilting back the neck would not solve the bottomed out saddles, which would have to lift much too much to clear the last fret again, putting me back with too much clearance at fret 15... so the best bet is a "flat" shim, lifting the whole neck (towards the strings so to speak) and allowing me some more leeway with the saddles. Now the action is close to OK, even if the neck profile is what a good neck should look like. I would guess the "set" came in the first ten years, with constant string tension and no truss rod tension. All this tilt vs. shim is hotly debated on the web, with people claiming it is the same thing. Not so. In many cases the difference would be small, but there will be cases where the one way is better than the other. The usual "my 2C" and "IMHO" and "AFAIK" stuff here, do not shoot me.

          Which brings me back to all you guys telling me a Nylon String does not need a truss rod, well, after a century or so the neck will have taken a set, the body will have warped, requiring a re-set and planing down. Or even after ten years on the cheap stuff I play. Just happens I like the truss rod idea.

          V8, yes, it is an unique guitar in a way, and the tone! (That player that could, after a short try, said, with claws extended, "I WANT". That was four years before I started to adjust the action. Clearly the character shone through all the faults.) It is not perfect, but what is? It is starting to show dry wood symptoms by now, and someday when I am grown up, I shall build a storage cabinet with climate control.

          Edit - The neck profile is not what a good neck should look like.

            2 years later

            The work continues. I decided an extra neck shim is required to raise the neck to enable me to lower the action (again) – it would seem that the funny neck bend has dissipated with continued truss rod attention, and the bridges were already as low as possible.

            The new, extra shim on left. That brings me to about 1.2 mm lift in total, with a bit of backwards angle.

            I have been trying to lower the pickups and tune the pickup poles, but the bridge pickup refused to budge. Opening up while I had the neck off, I found this thoughtful routing of the pickup wires:

            Add to this a rather boxy pickup design, and you can understand why the pickup cannot go lower. The cavity walls were lined with by-now-disintegrated foam. Neat touch, but not required?

            Interestig choice of polepiece srews as well, 3.5 mm (about, some Imperial equivalent) self-tapper, too short for the hole, they do screw into metal for good magnetic contact. That is as low as the pickups can go right now, and as low as the screws go.

            I decided some good ol’fashioned, proven, Steve Vai hammer and screwdriver wood-removal technique would do, and opened up the cavity as well as the hole for the pickup wires.

            With this done, the bridge pickup can go right down to the pickup ring. I can get about 2 mm more if I snip off those screws holding the box together, work on wire routing, and fit longer pickup screws. Will test the new adjustment possibilities first. As for the polepiece screws, where do I find Allen Cap 3.5 mm sheet metal screws? Working on the pickups to replace with normal (black) cap screws will need de-soldering the wires to open the box to see if I can drill and tap the screw holes to M4 or so. Hmm, maybe not. Will check next time. Not soon. Already trying to find 5-40 cap screws for the Jem-Jr. No love for those shiny slotted heads.

            Another post has detailed my re-wiring efforts, I must admit the guitar is versatile now. “Humbucker From Hell” ( I guess) tones to normal Humbucker tones. Good clarity and definition. The pickup DCR’s measured out at
            6.1 K and 6.2 K, total 12.3 K?
            3.97 K and 4.4 K , total 8.4 K?
            The original wiring had small 100 KOhm pots, log taper. I replaced those with CTS 500 KOhm log pots, and did a Kinman treble bleed (120K 1/4 Watt resistor and 0.001 microFarad capacitor) as well as lower value (0.01 microFarad, down from 0.047 microFarad) tone cap.

            Must do the five-way switch thing…

            Great update, thanks!

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