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Hi folks. Working on a build right now. The neck angle is pretty spot on, but I sanded a little too aggressively on the cedar top to flatten the part where the tongue on the neck will be glued. I can still flex it down to glue it, but is it better to do that, or should I glue a shim? The gap at the bottom of the tongue is fairly significant...

Thanks!

Shim it or regret not shimming it

Shim. If by "fairly significant" you mean more quite a lot... If it's more than say, 1/20"
Easy enough to make.
Thickness a longish piece of fingerboard wood to the gap size, or rather slightly less to give some fall-off (about 15 thou), put it on a support piece of timber or thick ply.
Clamp/glue another piece (any hard wood) of the same thickness on top of it, with the end twice the length of your fretboard extension from the end of the shim.
Use a longish plane with the part of the sole behind the blade (very sharp blade and finely set) resting on the top piece and the tip of the plane overhanging the end and taper the shim until you just reach the supporting timber at the end.
Cut off tapered section when finished.
Got your shim.
(Got this from the departed Todd Stock - tip for tapering a small wedge)

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

At a couple of fairs I've seen the work of a well established maker here in Mid Michigan (reasonably priced but not cheap) and every sample he had at his booth had an extension shim. He felt it gave room for tweaking?

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Thanks!

I wonder if truss rod access through the soundhole will become a problem...

Define significant...

Perhaps I am missing something -- if you cut a slot in the shim the truss rod wrench won't even know its there.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Close to 1/16th at the end.

Personally I would just glue it down, unless it's a cutaway.

Shim.

Having the fingerboard extension drop off a little from the body joint is not necessarily a bad thing. It Wil make it easier to to do a neck reset down the road. But, it should be in the 1/16 - 3/32 range. More might be unsightly.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust