Epiphone '310' Basketcase:

If the frets were .050" .020" shim stock should work. My 65 SG was worse than that guitar. Your to kind Robert I say it was woodchipper material.
 
67plexi said:
If the frets were .050" .020" shim stock should work. My 65 SG was worse than that guitar. Your to kind Robert I say it was woodchipper material.
Click to expand...

Woodchipper is right, but I am cool with trying to save it...

Most of what I do are mods to brand new guitars...pickup swaps and setup mostly...swapping out PCB's for vintage harnesses...that sort of thing.

I will say this guy is really humble and pleasant to work with, so I'm willing to extend myself a bit...
 
Honestly, I wasn't expecting much....but I put it together anyways. I strung it with EB .010's and proceeded to set everything up.

As expected, the reduction in fret height necessitated dropping the bridge saddles - and as we suspected - even dropped all the way it's still not low enough with .075" @ the 12th fret unfretted as good as it would get.

I would like to see a .030" to .040" shim between neck and body and that will be my recommendation. Nobody has them.locally and I am out of time.

I cut the nut until I had .020" unfretted @ the 1st fret, and then set relief at .010" - which is SOP on all my setups.

Intonation was quick. The Tele-style bridge has a ton of adjustment. I was floored to see the intonation spot-on everywhere I checked it. Even barre chords at the 10th - 12th fret were in tune. Even a capo at the 7th fret did not pull the notes off pitch.

The highly polished frets - only .031" tall and crowned to perfection - really feel slick and the action on the first 5 frets is super low. Chords are just effortless - you don't even have to push down to fret the notes.

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This guy plays almost everything in the 1st through 7th fret and he doesn't play lead at all (I've played with his band before so I know) so the setup feels really good for this type of player. No buzz. No dead notes and all the chords are on pitch.

I was surprised at how good it felt considering how bad it was.

I cannot say this was the right way, but I did preserve the badly damaged, original frets and neck, which the owner wanted, in honor of his deceased brother.

With a neck shim, around .040" or so, I would have the ability to not only drop the action - .060" is my ideal 12 fret setting - but also more closely follow the 12" radius.

All in all, it was better than expected and delivered on time, just before a performance... :-)
 
I use maple laminate for shim material - the kind used for cabinetry.

Make the shim the whole pocket, not a strip closer to the body, thats what I read anyway.
either flat or stick it down with a little spray on adhesive and sand it to a wedge profile if need be.
That will get add neck back angle and bring the action lower with the same shim stock than just flat.

I used this because:
1. It is maple, and
2. its what I had on hand.
 
The guy loved it. The fact that he picks across the neck (wearing the edges off in the 12-14 fret area) makes the higher (.075") action at the 12th really work for him. Because I cut the frets with a taper (thinner towards nut - thicker towards bridge) the action in the first 7 frets is really low and fast.

I suggested the shim, but he liked it - and excellent intonation too!!!!
 
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