Music Banter - View Single Post - 3 vs 4 Bolt Necks
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Old 12-20-2010, 05:24 AM   #2 (permalink)
GuitarBizarre
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3 bolt necks have a washer and a small adjustment that lets you set the neck pocket angle without the use of a shim. The downside of this is that they're not as secure and are prone to shifting. 4 bolt necks are the better option, but they require either a shim in the neck pocket, or a neck pocket routed at the correct angle, in order to provide a correct playing angle.

Neck Angle Calculator - The Tundra Man Workshop

I caution you NOT to use no neck angle on your guitar, use an extremely shallow one, like 1 degree. Fender teles use no neck angle, but they use a bridge that is mounted ever so slightly too low on the body in my opinion. A higher neck angle will increase break point pressure on the saddles and improve your tuning stability, but too much of a neck break angle will raise the bridge too far off the body for comfort. For reference, a gibson les paul uses a 5 degree neck angle, though some have used 3 degrees. I'd recommend an angle no larger than 1.5 degrees.

The alternative is to make your guitar with no neck angle and recess the bridge.

Speaking of which, are you gonna be using a tele plate bridge on this guitar, or are you looking to try something different? If you are, I'd fully recommend a wilkinson gotoh bridge (Warmoth sells those too. Not to be confused with normal wilkinson bridges, these are made by gotoh, to higher quality standards, and are basically just ****ing awesome.)
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