Charvel San Dimas- neck shimming to lower action?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kapo_Polenton
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Kapo_Polenton

Kapo_Polenton

Well-known member
Guys,

I've got one of these Japanese Charvels, like the axe and the setup....not crazy about the action after playing it for a few months. Can't lower the bridge anymore because the pickups are direct mounted. I've heard about neck shimming to bring the neck up closer to the strings.. can anyone give me more information on how hard this is to do or how expensive it is to do if you bring it to a guitar tech??

Thanks.
 
Try tightening the truss rod a little. Puts a little backbow in it it will give you lower action with no shims. Did it to both of mine.
 
Kapo I had a usa charvel with a humbucker that was direct mounted but it had rubber o rings under it to set the pickup height. Have a look to see if you have them as you can get at least a 1/16 of an inch lower if you remove them.
 
I had to shim mine. Worked awesome after that though.
 
232 cap- to get at them I take it I will have to remove the strings, bring up the pickup and remove rubber ring ? (if there is any)

Chris O- can you describe the process?
 
I have never seen any rubber rings between the pickups and the body on these and I have taken about 25 of them apart to do "retro mods" to them. That would kind of defeat the whole purpose of having a direct mount pickup, wouldn't it? You are mounting the pickup directly to the wood in the belief that you will get better tone transfer. The rubber ring would theoretically kill that transfer.

I would say check to see if the neck needs adjusting. If it doesn't, you can take the neck off and cut a business card the width of the neck and put it as far into the neck pocket as it will go (towards the pickups). Then put the neck back on being careful that the shim doesn't fall out. Put it all back together and see what you think. Sometimes double thickness on the busines card is the way to go. Don't go too far, or pretty soon the pickup is farther away from the strings and the tone gets weaker.

Again, theoretically, you don't want much of anything between the neck and the body as that can affect tone transfer and resonance also.
 
If I need to shim a neck I usually just loosen the strings, take the springs off the back and remove the Floyd (I just leave the strings on). From there just remove the 4 neck screws. Then I usually just cut off the bigger end of a pick and tape it to the deepest part of the neck pocket. Then just put the neck back on and the neck will be at an angle and you will need to raise the bridge. I usually use just a thin or medium pick. It doesn't take much. There might be more proper ways, but I've always done it that way and never had an issue.
 
If the action is pretty close, you just want it a little closer I would trying tightening (turn clockwise) the truss rod a little before I shimmed the neck. If you have a small shaft flat head screwdriver like a Klein or Ideal electricians trim screwdriver you can do this without removing the neck but you do have to undo the neck pickup and pull it up out of the way. It doesn't take much on the truss rod. I would try a 1/8 or 1/4 turn at a time at most. If this doesn't do it turn the trussrod back to it's original spot (make a mental note of where you started) and shim the neck as described by Chubtone.
 
Thanks guys, most helpful.. I'll check this out. It isn't too far off but i'd def like it closer. A business card or pick will probably do the trick.
 
WAITAMINUT.....
Youre going to screw with the neck joint because of PICKUPS??!?
NO.... :doh:
lets 4get about the pickups 4a sec, CAN you lower the bridge to get the action where you want it, or is the neck angle too steep? If the setup/truss rod adjustment has alredy been taken into account and the ANGLE of the neck pocket is already CORRECT, then all you need to do is go skim a 1/16" or whatever you need, out from behind the pickups so they sit LOWER in relation to the body. But dont start fkng with the neck pocket unless you HAVE to... :doh:
Point being, I've removed wood IN the neck pocket on guitars to get the height/angle where it shoulda been in the first place, (I dont suggest this unless youre comfortable, many times it's not necessary ) but ONCE thats done, you drop your floyd where you want it (assuming its recessed and isnt 'bottoming out' on the body, thats another kettle of guitarpiks..) and run your truss rod as straight as possible without notes choking out, IF you have all that nice an close within an inch of its life, THEN you go look at the string angle in relation to that neck, if it's got 9 miles of space at the 22/24th fret, youre ANGLE sucks, so that neck pocket has to be Dik'd with.... that said, once the angle is correct, go back and make your pickups Behave and skim out the least possible ammt of wood from the body (assuming this isnt a paper-thin dinky thats alredy been ground out, or the legs of the current pickups arent Deep and causing height problems themselves) and mount those pickups where you want em...
My ramblings here are really to focus your energies on this being two SEPERATE things, the quality of your setup/neck pocket angle/relation of strings to neck, and how the pickups sit Beneath those strings, you gotta get that thing to PLAY right, Then go kik the ass outa those pickups!!!! :gethim:

H :yes:
 
Chubtone said:
I have never seen any rubber rings between the pickups and the body on these and I have taken about 25 of them apart to do "retro mods" to them. That would kind of defeat the whole purpose of having a direct mount pickup, wouldn't it? You are mounting the pickup directly to the wood in the belief that you will get better tone transfer. The rubber ring would theoretically kill that transfer.

You would think that but I bought a brand new matte black san dimas wild card the one with one humbucker and it has 2 small o rings for shims under the duncan JB.
Click to expand...
 
I've shimmed neck pockets before and shimmed direct-mount pickups before (with a couple of small machine washers) and I've never noticed any difference in resonance in either case, as long as you tighten everything up real good. I have screwed the action up by tightening the truss rod too much though. Frets will start buzzing and everything can go to hell if you don't have some relief in the neck. I bought an aluminum straight edge for adjusting relief based on a video that McNaught posted about set ups...So, if you shim the neck a little and need to raise the pick up height a little to compensate, shim the pick up too :thumbsup:
 
My pickups sit really high.. I feel as if the neck is angled slightly and if i lower the action anymore, the bridge pickup will be extremely close.. closer than the neck would be. I thought this was just the design? If I could get this lower it would be killer. As is, i have zero buzz problems right now and i'd like to keep it this way..
 
232cap":2qftjrlu said:
Chubtone":2qftjrlu said:
I have never seen any rubber rings between the pickups and the body on these and I have taken about 25 of them apart to do "retro mods" to them. That would kind of defeat the whole purpose of having a direct mount pickup, wouldn't it? You are mounting the pickup directly to the wood in the belief that you will get better tone transfer. The rubber ring would theoretically kill that transfer.

You would think that but I bought a brand new matte black san dimas wild card the one with one humbucker and it has 2 small o rings for shims under the duncan JB.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Same here. I have a flat black wild card from Chubtone and it had 2 black little rubber grommets.
 
I've owned a couple of the MIJ promod San Dimas, and have found the same thing with the direct mounted pups. They are mounted directly to the wood, no grommets. I think they may have used them on the MIA models that were direct mount, but I haven't seen any on the MIJ.

I shimmed my neck to get the action where I wanted, along with the distance to the pups I wanted. Super easy. Like Chubtone said, use something for a shim at the heel of the neck pocket, and it should work fine. It doesn't take much. I bought a small sheet of maple veneer years ago, and it works killer for making shims, lol. First see if it's just a matter of tightening the truss to get the neck straighter, but I wouldn't go too far. If you backbow, you will get some fretbuzz and kill sustain in the upper frets IME. I like it almost straight, but with a bit of relief.

I didn't notice any loss of sustain or tone with the shim. I did make sure to "marry" the neck to the body after I put the shim in. Back off the neck screws a couple turns, so the neck can move just a bit, then tune to pitch so the strings are a pulling the neck and body together. Once it's in tune, tighten the neck screws down, and this should assure a good fit between the body and neck. I've been told where the neck meets the body at the base of the neck, is even more important than the underside where the screws apply pressure.
 
Guys just a follow up, I ended up popping the neck and slightly adjusting/tightening the truss rod as there was a slight bow and ended up with half a business card in there to bring the neck a tad closer to the strings. Amazing the difference small adjustments or something as thin as a pick or business card can make. I didn't even really need to lower the bridge any.. i can probably even still drop it a tad more but this is way better now and plays like the Charvels I was reading about. Note to self, even if you look down the neck and it looks a tiny bit like a banana, straighten it out, it does make a diff.. and now, JB is going out next, Dimarzio SD time. Had enough of the mid honk.

As for the "marrying" of neck to body.. it is pretty clear when you don't have it seated properly. I found the best way was have it up vertical on a table so I could make sure the heel really kicked in.
 
A lot of people forget that when you do all these adjustments on the bench, when the guitar is in the playing position, it's a different ballgame.. ;)
Atomic Playboy
 
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