Widening a neck pocket

guitarcookie1

The neck pocket on the pine tele body I have is approx 2mm too small for the Mighty Mite neck I have to go on it.

Can this be widened tidily with basic hand tools or am I better off investing in a router? If the former, any tips please?

Andyjr1515

The risk of gouging an irreparable 'feature' for such a small amount of material to remove is too great with first-time router use. Easiest of course is to sand down the unseen faces of the neck with 80 grit on a firm sanding block. For the pocket, safest is to glue some 80 grit onto the 90 degree face of a properly square piece of wood and use the pocket bottom as your guide for the block to slide over. Quicker but more error prone is a sharp wide chisel, but the same cautions apply as for the router - don't practice skills on your pride and joy

axisus

I'd say it can be done with decent sharp chisels. 

jd0272

I'm in the same pickle with the CH Guitars Telemaster body and an Allparts neck. The difference is that minute I'll just sand it.

octatonic

I would chisel it, but I've done a fair bit of chiselling.

I wouldn't practice chiselling for the first time on something I cared about.

You need to be VERY sharp.

Sanding is very slow and almost anything sanded involves rounding off if doing by hand.

2mm with 80 grit sand paper- you could be there for quite a while.

ThePrettyDamned

Would it be easier to sand the neck heel itself?

octatonic

ThePrettyDamned said:

Would it be easier to sand the neck heel itself?

Perhaps- much easier to bugger it up though.

I would always go for the pocket, before the neck.

Misterg

guitarcookie1 said:

The neck pocket on the pine tele body I have is approx 2mm too small for the Mighty Mite neck I have to go on it.

Really daft question alert, and I'm not trying to insult your intelligence, but I have to ask:

You're not trying to slide the neck into the body from the side, are you? The neck pocket (should be) tapered to match the neck, so the neck needs to drop into it from above, rather than slide in from the side(1). Like I said, you probably know this, but just in case...

 (1) If the body was flat on a bench, for example

xHymnal

Unless you've used a router before and are very confident making and positioning a jig i definitely wouldn't use that. Use a super sharp chisel and just take your time about it, slowly only shaving off the tiniest bit of material at a time. Take the excess from the pocket. Just my 2c

GIJoe

I know just the person to do it!

http://goo.gl/QXUkft

guitarcookie1

I have chisels but no router so will try that.

The neck pocket is definitely too small, luckily the scratch plate will cover any misdemeanors if I shave the top edge..

Fez

I need to do a similar adjustment on my project. Not as much as 2mm though so it will be sand paper mostly on the neck. Count your blessings if the pocket was too big you would have to shim.