Man, some beautiful mahogany! Do no harm was my guiding thought. The neck was 1/16" under sized compared to the pocket so I decided to shim the pocket with glued in maple veneer. I could have cut a new pocket but it would have involved routing an oversized hole, inlaying a piece of mahogany and rerouting the pocket. Seemed like overkill and no guarantee the pocket would be in the right place.
Trimming. Note that the screw holes are not drilled symmetrically. Denis wanted to use the original neck holes and redrill the body. I thought I could just move the holes in their relative positions toward the bridge 21/64" which was the gap between the end of the neck and the pocket. I used a drill bit to determine the gap. Have to rethink since the holes ain't right.
Turned out the original route was also off center and the strings would not line up with the bridge properly. So I doubled up on the treble side and the neck end of the pocket and remove the bass side shim. Used the neck as a clamp and strings as tensioners and to check alignment.
Since the original holes were off I screwed these cut down screws into the neck using a vise grips pliers and pressed it into the neck pocket. Then drilled the new holes using the indentations from the screw points. And forgot to take pictures...ever notice how every '70s fender neck seems to have D Torres stamped on it?
Trimmed shim and neck dry fitted, no shim on bass side.
Stained with minwax polyshades. Denis wants to keep the mojo so not a lot of time was spent getting a perfect match. This was basically a functional repair. No neck wiggle, the bass now intonates and plays really well with super low action for a 30 year plus neck with no fret work.
The Mark of the Beast
Thanks for trusting your 'bird to me, Denis. It'll be on its way back to you Monday.
