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Hello! I am finally to a point where I am ready to start fitting the dovetail on my StewMac kit and it is fairly loose. From what I see in all of the blogs and forums, this joint should require some fitting before it goes into the pocket, but mine slides in all the way and wobbles up and down and side to side with ease. The only thing I can do to sturdy things up is to put veneer shims on the sides of the mortise...

My question is: should I glue the veneer on the sides of the mortise to get a tight fit and then proceed to sand and file to adjust L/R, forward/back, and up/down?

The dovetail on my unbuilt LMI kit is very very tight...

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Don't confront me with my failures--I have not forgotten them.

Oops! I meant tenon!

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Don't confront me with my failures--I have not forgotten them.

If you have a mortise and tenon neck to body joint, you should know that it is not critical that the joint fit tight. In fact, if it fits tightly before you start fitting the neck to the body, the tight fit will prevent the neck from moving in certain directions and prevent you from making some adjustments. You are fine.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Tenon, as in the part of the dovetail attached to the neck.

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Don't confront me with my failures--I have not forgotten them.

I have only built one guitar, but I made it with a dovetail joint. Although I started with the tenon oversized, I ended up using shims. What I suggest is to hold the shims in place on the tenon, and fit the tenon into the mortice that way. Then you can sand or plane the shims until the fit is to your liking. If you do it this way, and go too far, all you have to do is make a new shim.

Joe

Shim it up, and cut it down to size. I don't use veneer, as I fit with a chisel rather than sanding, and veneers will tend to tear in to the grain. I cut shims cross grain, similar orientation to the neck grain itself. No structural or tonal motivation here, but rather just one of workability with a chisel.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Should I glue the shims or just put them in there loose (while fitting)? The only reason I was thinking of gluing them was that I could be sure they made consistent contact between removing the neck, replacing the neck, removing the neck, etc...

Thanks!

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Don't confront me with my failures--I have not forgotten them.

Well, for what it's worth, I did it by leaving them loose. I did label them so I'd know which one went to which side, and how they were oriented in the joint.

Joe

Matthew,
what are you using for shims? how did you make them? just wondering, as I am about to do the same thing myself...

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"...you have to get over your strict adherence to your largely imagined notion of absolute perfection..."

I am using the maple veneer that StewMac included with the kit... Was thinking about using the rosewood peghead veneer that I decided not to use (using ebony instead), but it is too thick...

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Don't confront me with my failures--I have not forgotten them.

Well, I spent about 3 hours tonight with some chisels, a couple of straight edges, and a lot of sandpaper to get the joint to about 95% of where I want it to be. The angles are dead on, I just want to clean up the heel so it looks better glued and I need to work on the shims to be sure it is a rock solid fit... Getting close...

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Don't confront me with my failures--I have not forgotten them.

...another hour with some 150 grit paper and I think I'm there! Time to do the final shaping of the neck, sanding, then finishing, then setting up. Then FINALLY, I will be able to play this thing!!!

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Don't confront me with my failures--I have not forgotten them.