Neck pocket not big enough, sand the neck or the pocket?

t1000

Hi 

Got a wonderful strat neck from GSPBasses and an equally wonderful ash body of ebay. The neck is slightly to wide for the pocket, I've searched the net and some say to sand the neck others say the pocket. Just wondered what our forum experts think. Or would I be better to make a template and router it. Its probably 1mm to wide at a guess.

Thanks

Rich 

sweepy

I'd sand the body if I were you , get a block of aluminium and some self adhesive sandpaper and many many cups of tea

ThePrettyDamned

I found someone online saying sanding would work if you could guarantee consistency, which you can't.

So the advice was to route 0.5mm from each side of the pocket, assuming this was the correct amount.

HOWEVER... This is not from my own experience. I'd wait till someone such as @wezv or @gspbasses chips in.

Something @ttony said on my thread was that you should work on the less valuable, more easily replaceable part. In this case, that's probably the body.

WezV

Yeah, i would normally route to correct dimensions

sweepy

Be damned tricky to rout out the treble side of the neck pocket on a Strat I'd rather take the slow but steady sanding option there and with an ally right angle section its remarkably straightforward

DamianP

It depends whether the pocket is too small or the neck too big.  

Typically the widest point of a Strat neck should be 56mm.  

That said, I would usually prefer to widen the pocket. Particularly on Strats where, depending on the bridge, the E strings can be quite close to the edge of the board.

Sanding is ok but I would usually only do this for final fitting to remove finish.   A square block used with care and patience will be fine.  

For larger adjustments I would use a router.

Before enlarging the pocket be careful to check the alignment of the pocket with the bridge and then be careful to maintain or adjust this as required.  Don`t simply remove material from one side.. Sure you can twist the neck in the pocket to line it up but it`s better if it`s all correct to start with.