Neck angles/Shims/Unrecessed Floyds

[bibz]

Some of you may remember my golden mutt I built last year, here he is;


Now its always played great, and the tone and sound is fucking amazing, but its never been setup 100%. I pieced this thing together and assembled it, and have been reading alot about more intensive luthierial processes. Theres only a few things that dont quite add up for me, or I haven't been able to find out.

First off neck angle. I remember reading that unrecessed floyds require a particular degree neck angle. Only recently have I asked why? Is it so the neck doesn't stick up massively at the joint with the body? Optimum neck angle seems paramount to getting a decent setup, and I'm a little lost there.

One other sad note, I've found the limit of my truss rod and the neck still isnt perfectly straight. Needs just a tad more relief. Yeah you are meant to have some, but it makes diagnosing things whilst strung up a little difficult. The only repair I've read involved steaming, but obviously this is a last resort.

After all these problems have been sorted, I can get to the frets and give them the once over if need be, I'm certain they need a level and recrown.

Overall its such a lovely guitar, but it just needs a little more tlc to make it an absolute appendage.

[shreddermon]

Optimum neck angle seems paramount to getting a decent setup, and I'm a little lost there.

This is very true, and I recently experienced it with a mod'd strathead. When it came back from getting the mods, the set-up was only so-so. So after a while I brought it into a local shop for a better set-up and intonation. This improved it, but it was only good - still wasn't great. (...BTW, I suspect that had more to do with the vintage Fender/Gibson snobs at the shop, who seemed lamely biased against working on Floyd'd guitars.) So a few weeks ago, I brought the guitar to a local luthier I got in touch with, who had a good rep. As soon as I handed him the guitar, he immediately identified neck angle as the biggest set-up issue. It needed a bigger shim. After his re-shim and set-up, it was like a completely different guitar. It went from being very good to a flat-out smoking player with killer action and intonation. In fact, probably the best "player" in my stable.

[VitaminG]

First off neck angle. I remember reading that unrecessed floyds require a particular degree neck angle. Only recently have I asked why? Is it so the neck doesn't stick up massively at the joint with the body?

No. It's so that the fretboard follows the line of the strings from the nut to the bridge, allowing a decent action regardless of whether the Floyd is recessed or not. Obviously a non-recessed Floyd will sit higher relative to the face of the guitar. If you put a non-recessed Floyd on a body with a neckheel cut for a recessed Floyd, the action will get progressively higher as you move up the neck, to the point that the guitar is virtually unplayable, because the angle of the strings and the angle of the neck are different. You might be able to play around on the lower frets, but the action on the upper ones will be ridiculous.

Conversely, a recessed Floyd on a body with a neckheel cut for a non-recessed Floyd will mean a straight line from the nut to the bridge will cross the plane of the fretboard. Of course, the strings won't actually cross the plane of the fretboard, they'll just sit on the fretboard and the guitar will be unplayable.

[Soap]

I may be wrong, but, I believe for a nonrecessed floyd the neck pocket needs to be angle 2%/percent. Not sure.

Warmoth states this or something to that affect at their site. May need to add a shim to get the neck to setup just right.