New Guitar- Unsure About the Fit of the Neck

[ljubljana]

A couple weeks ago I got my first Warmoth.  To say the least, I will never buy guitars from anywhere else- I love it! It's not letting me attach pictures, but I'll try again later.

I do, however, have a question about the way the neck is attached. There's a ~1mm gap between the body and the part of the fretboard that over hangs it (the last fret). Also, the neck comes out of the body a small negative angle (when holding the guitar, the neck is slightly tilted towards me), but when I checked a couple other guitars, it was either parallel or a slight positive angle.
I'm thinking that I could fix both of these (assuming that they are, in fact, problems) by sanding either the neck or the pocket, but I want to double check before starting.  Is this a good idea? If so, would it be better to sand the neck, the pocket, or both?

 

[Mor Paul]

The gab is normal. That is for a pickguard, and a bit of extra room.
The angle, loosen the screws and set the neck, if I'm reading it right.
Give us some details on the neck and body.

 

[ljubljana]

Thanks,
It's a Les Paul neck and body. No pickguard, so the gap makes sense now.
Taking the strings as 'up', the neck comes out of the body at a slight 'down' angle.

 

[Mor Paul]

Okay, that angle is supposed to be there.
The carved tops require a neck angle. I'm guessing most of your other guitars are fender-style?

 

[ljubljana]

Thanks a lot for the help.
For some reason, the board doesn't want to let me attach pictures (400KB jpgs, which it says should be okay)... imgur to the rescue: http://imgur.com/1fc60.jpg and http://imgur.com/yIQzG.jpg
The guitars I checked were two Ibanez hollow-body electrics and an Eastman semi-hollow, but I also noticed it in a Joe Bonamassa dvd (he was playing a LP). Why do carved tops need that angle?  How steep should the angle be?

 

[Mor Paul]

IIRC, the angle should be 4 degrees.
The board recently went through hardware changes, I believe, and the permissions to attach pictures were not restored.
You can host the picture on photobucket or imageshack.
The carved top has the bridge higher than the neck, as opposed to non-carved tops, which have everything flat. The neck is angled to keep the action lower at the high frets.

 

[ljubljana]

Perfect. Thanks again.
I just edited my last post with "imgur to the rescue: http://imgur.com/1fc60.jpg and http://imgur.com/yIQzG.jpg".  Unfortunately, the light is really bad right now (winter and all...), so the pictures aren't great.

 

[CrackedPepper]

Pics are good enough to see that the guitar is awfully pretty!  Nice axe!  arty07:

 

[blue313]

Perfect. Thanks again.
I just edited my last post with "imgur to the rescue: http://imgur.com/1fc60.jpg and http://imgur.com/yIQzG.jpg".  Unfortunately, the light is really bad right now (winter and all...), so the pictures aren't great.

Fixed

 

[ljubljana]

Is that the preferred way to post pictures on this forum?  The precedent is different everywhere, so I decided to play it safe.

 

[Mor Paul]

We like the pictures posted in messages  :icon_thumright: