Fret Level Help

Ray says SUCCESS. AS in a Flattened straight neck

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I didn't spot that part about missing the middle, so switching to the small block. That would tend to sand down into the dip and not straighten it.
 
Granted, Ray is in the midst and has his eyes and hands on this neck. I am still just trying to reckon that big shim etc etc.

I had one Bass neck I swear undulated to my eye. I wasn't using a straight edge. so I could not prove it 100%. At least eyballing the edge of the neck as I sighted down it, it looked wavy. Might have been a finish sanding flaw on the edge but still a straight neck, or it might have been exactly as I saw it, Wavy
 
DonP said:
I didn't spot that part about missing the middle, so switching to the small block. That would tend to sand down into the dip and not straighten it.
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I used the small block to target the upper and lower portions of the neck only until they came closer to the middle dip. Then I went back to the full beam and stayed with it until I had an ever surface.
 
RVA by tapering that shim you made you might even be able to cut the thickness of the whole shim down some. Basically if you taper the shim, thin part to the front your creating neck angle. leaving the shim all the same size your just raising the whole neck. Im thinking if you taper that neck shim where it creates neck angle it will allow you to not use such a thick shim.Just my 3 cents of course.
 
DonP said:
I guess you could have put a slight taper on the shim to tip the neck back a little and allow more height in the bridge saddles.
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This.
tapered shim adds a little back angle, changing the geometry and lowering the overall action changing the effective range of saddle heights.
This is why TOM type bridged guitars have a more pronounced back angle; the TOM sits higher off the body relative to strat type bridge and saddles.
 
I can say for certain that crafting a tapered shim is MUCh more difficult than flat. Anyway, I got it done and it substantially reduced the shim size. I guess you split the work between height and angle

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DonP said:
Yes, that will do very nicely. How does the saddle adjustment look now?
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Thanks! With this shim, the saddles need to be LIFTED an appreciable amount to get the strings off of the board, but nothing too high. I will have to leave it at that because I do not have the ability to make micro adjustments at a taper

Also, the neck settled in nicely and goes dead straight if desired.
 
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