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I’ve used maple veneer, paper, business cards, it doesn’t really make too much difference, as long as you get the shim height right.
The StewMac tapered shims look nice, but a bit of a ffaff to get hold of over here.
You can achieve a similar effect with 3 strips of card of decreasing thicknesses laid across the neck pocket. The compression of the neck will flatten out the “steps” into a smooth and even wedge.
There's a lot of nonsense about shims 'killing tone', tapered wooden wedges being better, 'vibration transfer' and all that, but the fact is that there are thousands of great-sounding Strats out there - including many of the most revered vintage ones - with shims, mostly card or fibreboard. I use card or a simple strip of wood veneer, depending on the thickness I need.
They do not kill tone, in fact they may even improve it. Every time I've fitted a shim to a guitar without one, or ever replaced a tapered wooden one with a plain one because the tapered one was the wrong thickness, the guitar has always sounded better afterwards - whether that's because a card shim actually sounds better or because a well-set-up guitar sounds better is a question you can ask, but in the end it really doesn't matter...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
A piece of business card cut to fit in the pocket is usually the perfect thickness (in most cases) and takes minutes to do without even removing the strings. Then you can crack on with playing it
I generally fold a piece of wet&dry paper at the 2/3 point so that around 1/2 way to the back of the pocket there's a single thickness, and the last 1/4 is double thickness - something like 240 grit adds a little grip to help the neck stay put too.
Remember that if you had a Strat with the micro-tilt set up it would only be sitting on the grub screw at the back, and Fender seemed quite happy with that small amount of contact
I too wanted it done properly, my OCD couldn’t handle a copped up business card.
"Properly" is the way Fender did it, with card or fibreboard. Or don't 50s and 60s Strats sound good?
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein