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I am loving my new Jaguar and the setup is awesome. However, I noticed a gap between the body and the neck. The body and neck make good contact initially, but they slowly start to come apart. The gap at the bottom is large enough to put a small flathead screwdriver into. It almost looks like the guitar was setup like this to get the action right. What should I do? Leave it or do I need to loosen the strings and bolts and try to get the neck to evenly sit against the body? Here are some iPHone pics.

maybe it's been shimmed? thought you mentioned it had been set up with nice low action, no?

odd... have you tried tightening the lower screws?

Must be a shim - but if it plays well it's not worth taking it apart, I made that mistake.

hotrodperlmutter wrote:maybe it's been shimmed? thought you mentioned it had been set up with nice low action, no?

odd... have you tried tightening the lower screws?

Haven't tighten them yet. I was just trying to see if there would be a reason the gap would be there or would be setup that way.

Can you explain shimming? Anyway I could tell mine had been shimmed?

shimming is just when they put a small piece of plastic (sometimes a guitar pick) between the neck and the body. it's pretty standard setup.

Shimming is just that, taking the neck off and inserting a shim(material of a known thickness) between the body and neck to get the neck up to a specific distance for the action. Most likely if you pop the neck off, you will find a shim underneath it and this is what would account for the slight gap.

Someone will more than likely put a slither of wood or a cut off from a business card at the back of the neck pocket... a shim !!

This will increase the break angle of the neck, helping with sustain... which is very noticeable usually. It often helps to achieve a nicer overall action too. Quite often guitars come with them as stock... stuck to the back of the neck, you may have seen them before.

If its quite a thick shim you will see a gap there, looks like quite a severe shim... has the bridge been raised to compensate ??

If it plays nice, I would just leave it... and don't over tighten the nuts, but do check !!

Hi everyone, this is my first post so I thought it may as well be a useful one....welll I hope its useful anyway.

This is a standard factory set up for AVRI Fenders, its done to give the neck a better (or rather, a correct) angle. Some AVRI's have 1 shim,
some have around 4 thinner ones, it all depends on the guitar and the variations in necks when they put it together and
set it up.

The bodies are all pretty much identical because they are made on a CNC machine but the necks are not 100% idential because there's some hand work involved in making them (sanding etc) so each neck will be slightly different than the next.
The shim is there to compensate for these small variations and achieve the correct neck angle on each guitar. Although the bodies themself are hand sanded as well they dont sand the neck pocket and this makes all Jaguars have the same neck pocket dimensions.

Shims annoy the piss out of some people and you can actually get away with reducing the amount its shimmed in most cases if you know how to set up guitars.

By reducing the shim height you will also be effecting the action and will need to adjust the bridge height to compensate.

My old US Mustang came with a big ass shim in it, about 2.25mm thick, I reduced it by a factor of about 4 and put a tune-o-matic on it and its set up great. What I did was shim the front of the neck 1 card thick and the back 2 cards thick, this raises the over all neck but still gives it a good enough angle and reduces the gap significantly.

In extreme cases a truss rod adjustment may be needed but i've never had to do this.

So basically if you want to get rid of that gap, or at least reduce it in size you will need to put a smaller shim in, adjust the bridge and set it up as normal and see how it plays. Each guitar is different and each will require a different shim thickness.

Its a set and check process.

Or you can just leave it be.....

Earth wrote:Hi everyone, this is my first post so I thought it may as well be a useful one....welll I hope its useful anyway.

This is a standard factory set up for AVRI Fenders, its done to give the neck a better (or rather, a correct) angle. Some AVRI's have 1 shim,
some have around 4 thinner ones, it all depends on the guitar and the variations in necks when they put it together and
set it up.

The bodies are all pretty much identical because they are made on a CNC machine but the necks are not 100% idential because there's some hand work involved in making them (sanding etc) so each neck will be slightly different than the next.
The shim is there to compensate for these small variations and achieve the correct neck angle on each guitar. Although the bodies themself are hand sanded as well they dont sand the neck pocket and this makes all Jaguars have the same neck pocket dimensions.

Shims annoy the piss out of some people and you can actually get away with reducing the amount its shimmed in most cases if you know how to set up guitars.

By reducing the shim height you will also be effecting the action and will need to adjust the bridge height to compensate.

My old US Mustang came with a big ass shim in it, about 2.25mm thick, I reduced it by a factor of about 4 and put a tune-o-matic on it and its set up great. What I did was shim the front of the neck 1 card thick and the back 2 cards thick, this raises the over all neck but still gives it a good enough angle and reduces the gap significantly.

In extreme cases a truss rod adjustment may be needed but i've never had to do this.

So basically if you want to get rid of that gap, or at least reduce it in size you will need to put a smaller shim in, adjust the bridge and set it up as normal and see how it plays. Each guitar is different and each will require a different shim thickness.

Its a set and check process.

Or you can just leave it be.....

Welcome!

That is very interesting, too.

Earth wrote:Hi everyone, this is my first post so I thought it may as well be a useful one....welll I hope its useful anyway.

This is a standard factory set up for AVRI Fenders, its done to give the neck a better (or rather, a correct) angle. Some AVRI's have 1 shim,
some have around 4 thinner ones, it all depends on the guitar and the variations in necks when they put it together and
set it up.

The bodies are all pretty much identical because they are made on a CNC machine but the necks are not 100% idential because there's some hand work involved in making them (sanding etc) so each neck will be slightly different than the next.
The shim is there to compensate for these small variations and achieve the correct neck angle on each guitar. Although the bodies themself are hand sanded as well they dont sand the neck pocket and this makes all Jaguars have the same neck pocket dimensions.

Shims annoy the piss out of some people and you can actually get away with reducing the amount its shimmed in most cases if you know how to set up guitars.

By reducing the shim height you will also be effecting the action and will need to adjust the bridge height to compensate.

My old US Mustang came with a big ass shim in it, about 2.25mm thick, I reduced it by a factor of about 4 and put a tune-o-matic on it and its set up great. What I did was shim the front of the neck 1 card thick and the back 2 cards thick, this raises the over all neck but still gives it a good enough angle and reduces the gap significantly.

In extreme cases a truss rod adjustment may be needed but i've never had to do this.

So basically if you want to get rid of that gap, or at least reduce it in size you will need to put a smaller shim in, adjust the bridge and set it up as normal and see how it plays. Each guitar is different and each will require a different shim thickness.

Its a set and check process.

Or you can just leave it be.....

Welcome! Nice to see you here dude

Thanks guys!
Hi Fran!

Thanks for the info. I have seen other manufactures like Taylor guitars use shimms or spacers to adjust the neck angle. The gap is small and doesn't bother me. Just wanting to make sure everything was good. at some point I may remove the neck to look at the date stamp and I can then confirm the shim is there.

There's no doubt about it, if the neck has a gap there is a shim in there, 100%!

Its totally fine to leave it as is so if its not bothering you I wouldn't even bother chaning anything.

Looks dangerous to me. That might fly apart. Could rip your arm off in the middle of My Sweet Lord. You should test it by throwing it down a flight of concrete steps. Remember to put some safety goggles on first though.

Gavin wrote:Could rip your arm off in the middle of My Sweet Lord.

oh lolz

I also need to adjust the intonation on the low E string. It's very flat on the 12th fret.

I've seen and owned many shimmed Fender guitars but I've never seen one with a gap like that. I'd def check under the hood at your next string change. Surely the neck sitting so far from the body can only be a bad thing?

Just a note on an earlier comment: truss rod should, in my experience, be first resort way before shimming, providing that you are confident with adjusting the truss and bridge in tandem to get that certain 'balance'. If that fails hit the shims but generally unless the the neck heel depth is too small, or there's something funky with the neck pocket, or you are just missmatcing a body and neck, a shim is usually avoidable. Not sure if that's just me but experience has told me to work with what is inately a part of the guitar first even if it means a little more fiddling around with stuff.

There is something to be said for sustain from a greater break over nut and bridge and yes a shim can do this however bridge and truss can often, but not always, achieve this when sorted out. The reverse argument made by some is that you gain 'tone' and sustain by ensuring a tight wood-to-wood joint between body and neck. There is a trick where you undo the neck screws by a half turn, tune to pitch, tighten screws and re-tune to pitch. This pulls the neck and body tight together and I must admit I was impressed with the improvement in sustain at least unplugged. I've always been a bit peed off if I need to stick a bit of fag packet in my guitar to make it work properly.

I think that this whole neck break angle/ need for shims thing is one of the points they addressed in the Classic Player series.
Certainly my CP has no gap there.

MMPicker wrote:I think that this whole neck break angle/ need for shims thing is one of the points they addressed in the Classic Player series.
Certainly my CP has no gap there.

Originally I was going to get a CP Jag (still might get the HH), but this guitar came along at an incredible price. Huge upgrade in quality, but I have to deal with the issues of a 47 year old design. Luckily the advantages out weigh the disadvantages.