Ok, remember earlier how I said that some of my extensive add ons would come back to haunt me? Well, here’s why. The original bridge for the Saga guitar kit was a made very thick and beefy, not a bad thing in terms of ruggedness, it was probably a little overbuilt, since Telecasters have had thinner necks for ages and are just fine.

Saga Telecaster bridge vs. Guitarfetish bridge

Anyway, the Saga bridge was about an eight of an inch thicker than the telecaster bridge. So when I put the neck on and then the bridge, the strings were sitting on the neck, even when the bridge was adjusted as high as it would go. The bridge was just too low.

So I had a few options: First, add a shim under the bridge to make it higher, probably the easiest but inelegant. Second, shave some wood off the neck heel, making it sit lower in the neck pocket, probably the second easiest option, but I didn’t want to weaken the neck where it joined the body. It was going to need 4 long screws in there and I didn’t want them coming through the fretboard. Third option, rout or chisel out the neck pocket. This was the most difficult option because it was the easiest to screw up. The bottom of the pocket needed to be level and I couldn’t make the sides too big. If I did, I could always glue some extra wood in there and rework it, but still a lot of work.

Anyway, I decided to rout the neck pocket since it would be the best solution, although not the easiest. Here’s how I did it. I took some MDF and clamped it around the neck pocket, checking it several times to make sure it lined up. Since I didn’t have a pattern bit, I lowered the router collet just a little so it would ride around the MDF - not best practice but ok for one time use. I had to offset the MDF the width of the collet, so it basically acted as a temporary template. I could’ve cut one out, but since it was a one time use, this was easier. I made sure to clamp it down well, and shifting and the pocket would be gouged.

The Saga neck is sitting too high in the pocket.

MDF clamped to the body to act as a jig.

Router template and depth.

Neck pocket after routing.

Cleaning up the pocket edges

Ok, if you’re going to do something like this you’ll need to err on the side of caution.  I set the depth pretty shallow, if it was wrong I could’ve done it again.  It’s always easier to remove wood then to add it.  Still if you do go too far you can always glue in shims and re-rout.  If there’s one thing I learned from the Musical Instrument Makers Forum, is that a lot of handmade guitars have fancy inlays just to cover mistakes!   Anyway, after a little clean up with a sharp chisel the neck pocket was perfect, and I had a little bit of leeway to adjust the strings up or down.  All in all I barely took off a 16th of an inch, and that was enough to do the trick.