Strat adjustments for a conversion neck

[tc4all]

I got a conversion neck for an Eric Johnson Strat.  There was some buzzing and I was told by Warmoth that it needed a shim at the headstock end of the neck pocket.  That worked very well except for the last one or two frets (21 & 22).  My thought is this, that since the fit was so good initially, once you put a .88 mm shim at the headstock end of the neck pocket, the lip of the neck that overlaps the body, where it is only the fretboard wood, not the neck wood, is, once tightened, actually being bent up.  It may only be a little but it would probably be enough to raise the frets 21 and 22 just enough to get in the way and buzz when pressing at fret 18 - 20.  This all started because the neck actually angled down, initially and my saddles were raised as much as they could be.  Do I have this right?  I am just not sure.  Any help would be appreciated. 
Thanks

 

[Strat Avenger]

You did what to an Eric Johnson Strat??!

 

[Cagey]

I suspect your analysis is correct, and it should be easy enough to check. Can you get anything between the fretboard extension and the pickguard? Some feeler gauges would be my choice, but even just a piece of printer paper might tell you all you need to know. If there's no clearance, you've got trouble.

But, Mr. Avenger is correct in questioning what you're thinking in doing such a thing. There are a lot of fools out there you could part from their money pretty easily in exchange for that guitar just because it's an "Eric Johnson" fever dream. If you don't like it, put it up for sale and build something decent from the proceeds.

 

[stubhead]

Well, if I wanted an Eric Johnson Strat with a short scale (I don't, really) I'd do the same thing. There are a lot of professionals playing Johnson, Beck and especially Clapton signature models, the latter because of the active mid boost that really does get you through a set of bar band songs originally played on Gibsons. One reason for going to a signature model is that the quality control just IS better - the pickup's outputs are already matched, the electronics are too. I would guess that the Johnson signature is also very carefully-designed so that the neck fits just perfect - which means an aftermarket neck may not. (These little things are pretty common, by the way - a few years back someone else had this exact situation.)

In this situation, I've seen people use a shim that raises the entire neck up. A quick way to check this is to use an extra neck plate inside the pocket. If that works, you could think about making a tapered shim. However, that takes some level of precision, it's an extra piece, the neck is connected with a slightly-shorter number of screws.... yuck.

If it was mine, I'd buy another pickguard for $15 and cut out the part under the fingerboard. And then if that works (which assumes you have figured out the problem correctly + there's now extra room left) I'd personally also reshape the neck's butt end so as to not need the shim anymore. That also required a fair amount of precision, and two straightedges you trust.... if the contact is really minimal you could also just take a bit of wood off the bottom of the Warmoth's fingerboard overhang. I would FIRST make really sure that that would fix things and you'd have to be careful not to sand the butt end - it looks like you could get up to 3/32" more clearance that way.

What I would try to avoid is changing any of the original guitar's parts, because it is worth a lot more "stock." The Eric Johnson neck only has 21 frets, right?

(By the way, on Eric Johnson's 2006 video he plays "Cliffs of Dover" on a old GIBSON SG/Les Paul - and it sounds just like Eric Johnson, playing "Cliffs of Dover." Which is elliptically why I don't want an Eric Johnson Strat - it wouldn't help. :sad1

 

[Cagey]

Hehe! Yeah - being Eric Johnson has a helluva lot more to do with sounding like Eric Johnson than the gear. Paying gobs of money for his idea of a Strat setup isn't going to help much, if at all.

 

[Strat Avenger]

It doesn't make sense that you would have to shim the neck if the original neck was not shimmed. My Strat plays fine with the neck in the factory (non-tilted) position. I've never had to adjust it. I don't even know why they put the Micro-Tilt feature on them...