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I'd start with a piece of card (e.g. from a business card) at the body end of the neck pocket. Go full width but only ~10mm long. This should get you started, but you may need a couple in there..
Draw the pocket onto the card, and then cut accordingly so the shim sits nicely in the pocket.
Also, what is the neck angle like? You may want to consider how big and where you position the shim.
This is not correct.
It will help the action, if the issue is that the saddles are as low as they'll go and that isn't low enough. In this case you put a shim at the bridge end of the neck pocket and it'll tilt the neck backwards. This does lower the action.
Even if the action is nice but the screws are digging in to your hand you can use a shim, as you'll need to raise the saddles in order to achieve the same action as without a shim. But you are correct you could use shorter screws in this scenario too.
Using a shim at the bridge end also increases the break angle which changes the feel (increased break angle tends to feel a little more 'tight')
I found a load I stashed for just this reason the other day from before the last time I gave up the fags.
I've been known to use them under nuts that have gone a bit low as well.
Today I had the opposite problem with the bridge saddles being wound up to the limits of the grub screws, which looks silly and effects pickup height. That needed a reverse shim at the pocket end farthest from the bridge, which is harder to keep in place when refitting the neck.
But all a lot easier than dealing with through-necks (thanks Leo)
Cut screw holes in the shim.
The Stew Mac shims have these by design.
Those Stew Mac shims are great. I have some somewhere. Now where did I put them...........
I fitted one of their bass ones on my 64 Precision and it was a superb fit
Although I don't like full-length shims at all - in my opinion the best sound is with a simple shim at the end, made from card, fibreboard or wood veneer, and regardless that there's an air gap in the middle.
I also don't like reverse shimming - to me it makes the guitar feel and sound odd - and I would only ever use it as a temporary fix really.
"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
FWIW I've never noticed any difference in the sound of a bolt-on neck guitar when it is shimmed - gaps or not.
It may just be my imagination but I've always found reverse-shimming makes the guitar sound slightly honky as well. I don't know particularly why it should be so, or why a plain card shim with a gap sounds better than a full-length wood one either!
"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
I've had guitars and basses with short non-wood shims in, taken them out, put a full length wood shim in and they have instantly felt, played, and sounded better.
No matter how you look at it, if you have a neck shim with an air gap, 4 screws are going to pull the neck into the pocket in a way which ultimately one way or another puts tension on one point more than others. With a full length wood shim the tension is going to be more evenly balanced.
I really don't buy your "they eliminate all contact" - in that case a layer of paint or lacquer eliminates all contact. And a shim probably gives you about 10% of the neck actually contacting the pocket. Cork sniffing, 'magic vibration sound transfer', 'shims made of special unicorn poo' aside.. a short shim at one end of the neck pocket is just down right bad engineering.