new guitar

[Doug H]

You don't get any wood contact under the string, so it's a different feel, and I think I hear a slightly different tone. There's a bit more room to get your fingers around the strings and I guess less resistence for benders and vibrato.

The down side is you can frett the string sharp just by pressing too hard so you have to use a light touch, which can get tricky with chords.

[Doug H]

argggghh! fuck shit fuck

the bolt holes in the neck are too big for plate screws and body.

[stainless]

epoxy wooden toothpicks into the holes in the neck- allow to dry overnight- drill a SMALL pilot hole and screw the SOB together

done deal

it'll hold

[Doug H]

ya, I thought the holes would be too big for toothpicks, I was thinking about picking up a 3/16 dowel

I was just about to string it up too

[stainless]

the problem with the dowels is the 2 screw/bolt holes closest to the heel (bridge) may not leave enough "meat" to hold without cracking/splitting

epoxy is a great gap filler

fill the hole, stuff in a toothpick (or 2)

trust me on this- as an ex furiiture/cabinetmaker/piano/antique restorer.... I had to fix many-many fuck ups (some of them mine)

[Doug H]

I don't understand, the holes are already 3/16, how is glueing a dowel in there going to split anything? Filling the hole with epoxy and drilling it out to screw into will work?

[stainless]

sorry- my answer wasn't real clear- The lower 2 screws on Fender necks are typically quite close to the end of the neck and I've seen more than a few necks that have split out the bottom end from the screws being overtightened - I'm assuming you'd have to drill out the existing holes to fit dowell pins into it- and being close to the end of the neck the glue inside the hole when the dowel gets "tapped" in makes a really effective hydraulic piston and there's a risk of splitting (blowing out) the small area of wood between the end of the neck and the hole....

The epoxy gives adequate strength coupled with the grabbing ability of the toothpicks - which will compress slightly around the screw threads. (whereas the epoxy once is rigid)

hope that makes sense

safer than trying to push a dowel in IMHO

[Doug H]

sort of, I still don't know if you mean the damage will be when the dowel is put in or when the neck screws are being tightenned, either way I'm going to try the epoxy with a few toothpicks method.

[stainless]

epoxy and toothpicks... yep it'll hold!

[Doug H]

pics, a couple pegs are a touch crooked, I might have another go with two of them, but I'm not sure how much more effort I want to put into it.

For now I'm trying to get it together for a jam this weekend.

[Doug H]

took a while to get the neck sounding good, angle was a bit off, so the bridge is adjsuted pretty high, I had to work the frets for a whle too but it's starting to sound good.

[WKWizard]

That looks nice. I really like the medium finish with black hardware. I wouldn't mind trying a scalloped neck sometime and I may follow your example in the near future. I'm just sort of finishing up my Lone Star Strat. I rewired it and shielded the pee out of it. I need to go back and tweak some adjustments yet. Sounds better than it did, which was already pretty good.