First partscaster problem - neck too wide

GoldenEraGuitars

mrkb said:

GoldenEraGuitars said:

Pics would be good. 

My approach would be to message the seller of the neck and ask what he used to spray the neck. If it was from a rattle can, buy a can of the same tint and proceed to lightly sand the heel of the neck. You can then touch up the sanded area on the neck and achieve a colour match. 

I hasten to add that if you’re not comfortable or confident doing any of the work I’d suggest taking the body and neck to your local tech. 

But you then end up with a non standard neck, that will be difficult to sell on. The dimensions given by OP show it’s  the body neck pocket that’s not standard, just needs a slight sanding to widen it. Doesn’t take much as the wood on the treble side only extends 10mm along the side of the neck.

It’s a very minor job. But the concern that I would have for the OP is keeping the side walls of the neck pocket straight through the sanding. 

We do this weekly with builds that come into us for finishing. And while the result is the same in the end (neck and body fit nicely) we have seen some terrible botched jobs. And tbh, while the neck is Allparts, once the tuners are removed it’s not worth a massive amount of cash. Sounds like the body Is worth more than the neck at this point.

Anyhoo, good luck @scarry67 , it sounds like it’ll be a nice build.

@pauln57 try fitting a Jap neck into a Squier body.... fun*!

*NOT 

ICBM

scarry67 said:

Thanks Mark. I think that’s what I’ll try. Is the rule of thumb that you sand the less valuable of the two parts? 

You should modify the correct one regardless of value.

In this case it’s the body - not only because the check of the dimensions shows it’s the body that’s non-standard, but if you shave the neck down it will have the wrong taper at the top end.

CasperCaster

I personally doubt it's the body at fault, at least on the Chinese made CV's. Many Jap necks are a little oversize at 56 to 57mm. Fender necks should be around 55.5mm wide at the heel (often rounded up to 56mm in descriptions). My 60's Squier CV has had a number of different necks on it without problem, inuding one from a Fender Mexican Blacktop, one from a Fender Mexican Standard and currently a Fender American Special neck. A nice fit in each case and the mounting holes all lined up perfectly. I also have an (admittedly not Allparts) Hosco Tele neck here, and it's around 57mm wide at the heel. I know which parts I'd trust to be right. 

mrkb

CasperCaster said:

I personally doubt it's the body at fault, at least on the Chinese made CV's. Many Jap necks are a little oversize at 56 to 57mm. Fender necks should be around 55.5mm wide at the heel (often rounded up to 56mm in descriptions). My 60's Squier CV has had a number of different necks on it without problem, inuding one from a Fender Mexican Blacktop, one from a Fender Mexican Standard and currently a Fender American Special neck. A nice fit in each case and the mounting holes all lined up perfectly. I also have an (admittedly not Allparts) Hosco Tele neck here, and it's around 57mm wide at the heel. I know which parts I'd trust to be right. 

Have you read the rest of the thread? The OP has stated the neck is 55.5mmm wide, so it’s the body that’s too narrow, and that is exactly the same as I found in my CV Tele thinline. I swapped a cv Tele maple neck with a cv Tele rosewood one with no issues, but swapping to a fender one showed the neck pocket to be too narrow. 

paulnb57

You could cut your losses, buy a compatible body, sell the original....

CasperCaster

@mrkb thanks for asking, yes I have read the rest of the thread.

And yes, I did see the following comment.

scarry67 said:

The neck runs from 54mm to 55.5mm...

What I didn't see was if those numbers were measured with a ruler, caliper or taken from a spec sheet. And I haven't seen mention of an accurate measure of the rout on the body. 

I also read that the OP had previously had no issues fitting a Fender MIM Esquire neck to a similar Squier body. That is curious and concurs with my experiences with three different Squier CV Tele's (all Chinese, not recent Indonesian models) including the one I still own which is the 60's model. 

Compared with the OP I have clearly had a different experience with my Squier CV's, including my double bound 60's model. In my case all of the necks were made by Fender, and were (I think) from 2010 or newer.

Ultimately I hope the OP resolves the problem to his satisfaction by whatever means he chooses.

scarry67

Well I’ve sanded the neck pocket carefully & squeezed the neck in there! I’m nervous that I’ll hear a crack in neck pocket at some point but so far so good. I now need to remove it to add some neck relief and despite having dozens of Allen keys I can’t find one that works on the saddles so action very low but playable. It looks great imho.

scarry67

Another question: should I wax neck plate screws or do anything like that when I loosen neck later to adjust relief?

CasperCaster

@scarry67 that looks great, I'm glad you got it sorted out. Is the body one of the limited run models? I had the white one with black binding but foolishly sold it. 

scarry67

Yep. The fsr black double bound - found it used at decent price. The neck has matching headstock which isn’t to my taste. The knobs are cheap press on ones but the pickups sound great. 

mrkb

scarry67 said:

Well I’ve sanded the neck pocket carefully & squeezed the neck in there! I’m nervous that I’ll hear a crack in neck pocket at some point but so far so good. I now need to remove it to add some neck relief and despite having dozens of Allen keys I can’t find one that works on the saddles so action very low but playable. It looks great imho.

That's good to hear, almost all the load goes through the screws, so once its bolted up theres little chance of side loading the neck pocket. I don't wax neck screws as once the thread has been created the biggest issue is with stripping it due to overtightening each time the neck is removed. Waxing threads just decreases the friction making the chance of overtightening higher. 

ICBM

It’s not overtightening that strips the threads usually, unless the holes have been drilled too big - it’s refitting the screws so they don’t find the old thread and cut a new one instead. A Fender-type screw into a good clean maple thread is near enough impossible to strip, at least by hand with a screwdriver - I always tighten them as fully as I possibly can, and never stripped one where the wood wasn’t already damaged (thus needing repair anyway). Maybe if you use a power driver set too high...