I ordered a .5 degree shim from stewmac. I arrived a few days ago, but I like to do this kind of work on weekends. My apartment is kind of dark and there’s more light during the day. So today I bit the bullet and took the neck off. The shim fit well and all the screw holes lined up. I screwed everything back up and that was that. I didn’t even have to remove the strings.
Did it work? Did it ever! Right away I notice that the string height is ridiculously low. I can’t even tune the thing there’s so much buzz. So I raise the saddles enough to tune it and then I go to work. I double check the neck relief. I decide I want it even straighter than it is, so I give it a nudge to 12 thou. Then I start measuring the string heights. Everything has to come up. Up, up, up. And then eventually I have to lower the B and G strings a bit.
The B is at six 64s, the E is just a hair over five, and everything else is a hair under five. This thing plays better now than it ever has. Probably in it’s entire 19 year history.
I wonder why they didn’t shim this thing at the factory. Anyway, I’ll revisit the whole set up tomorrow and again next weekend. Maybe I can get it to play as well as the Warwick does now.