Best way to widen a Tele neck pocket?

Jimbro66

I have a Tele neck which is standard 56mm wide at the body end but the neck pocket of a pre-finished body I recently received is just 54.5mm wide. Does anyone have any tips for widening the pocket without chipping the top finish? My inclination is to use a piece of 35x35 batten faced with sandpaper but is there a better way?

Sarge

Having a wider heel than pocket will give a overhang of the heel when looked at from behind.

Jimbro66

Sarge said:

Having a wider heel than pocket will give a overhang of the heel when looked at from behind.

That's right, so most of the 1.5mm has to come off the top edge of the pocket to eliminate the very small overhang.

the_jaffa

But then your neck will not be aligned with the centre line of your body.

Sarge

the_jaffa;1076463" said:

But then your neck will not be aligned with the centre line of your body.

Yep.
You can take half from the pocket and half from the heel to minimize this, but imo it's better to take from the heel alone, but that could limit that neck to that body.

WezV

I would always widen the neck pocket. Align it with the centre line and don't worry about the slight overhang. It can always be reshaped a bit later but you will likely find its fine as it is.... The priority should be good alignment with the centre.



And its a job for a router and template. Too much to remove for the sandpaper on the heel method, and lets face it, 54.5mm is just too narrow.

The only thing to consider is the existing finish. If that has a lot of build up in the pocket it will be the reason for the smaller pocket. I would still use a router, but you may be okay with sandpaper if its just to clean up paint. I mask it all off. The tape protects the finish and helps prevent chipping

Jimbro66

WezV said:

I would always widen the neck pocket. Align it with the centre line and don't worry about the slight overhang. It can always be reshaped a bit later but you will likely find its fine as it is.... The priority should be good alignment with the centre.



And its a job for a router and template. Too much to remove for the sandpaper on the heel method, and lets face it, 54.5mm is just too narrow.

The only thing to consider is the existing finish. If that has a lot of build up in the pocket it will be the reason for the smaller pocket. I would still use a router, but you may be okay with sandpaper if its just to clean up paint. I mask it all off. The tape protects the finish and helps prevent chipping

Many thanks @WezV and others who have commented. I'd be reluctant to reduce the neck width because I've often swapped Tele necks around on different bodies and they have always fitted perfectly. It is the body pocket that is at fault in this case and needs widening. The body finish is nitro cellulose over grain filler but there is no finish at all in the neck pocket, which was presumably well masked prior to spraying. So it needs wood removed rather than just paint finish. The body is bound so I need to be careful not to pull away the binding each end of the pocket.

I've used a router a number of times to enlarge pickup cavities and there has sometimes been some resultant very slight chipping of the paint finish at the edge. It didn't matter too much then because pick guard etc would cover it. At the neck pocket any chipping would be seen. I'll try routing with a template and masking the pocket edge as suggested by @WezV. I'm just a bit nervous about removing too much wood - it probably needs about 1mm off one side and 0.5mm off the other. I'll also be looking carefully at the relative positions of the existing 'bolt' fixing holes. Any tips on which bearing router bit type/size might be best @WezV?

WezV

the tape will help prevent chipping, you also need a sharp clean bit, and shallow cut through the finish to start

the binding does complicate things, but pay attention to the direction of cut  on the router and only nibble away -  it will be fine.

WezV

you can just use some straight edged wood for the template - similar to this

Jimbro66

/\ /\ That's really helpful. Many thanks. I'll give it a go at the weekend but first it's a trip down the road to Axminsters to get a good quality new router bit rather than trust my used ones.

streethawk

Get in there with a flat file!

Or, you know, do it properly with a router.