Neck alignment

[MapleGuitar]

Hi Tom, I recently got my first Hollow Drop Top Classic with the wedge neck joint.

On this guitar, the strings are too close to the treble edge. You can see that there is much more space between the low E string and the neck edge vs. the high-E string and the neck edge. This creates problems soloing (especially playing pull-offs and hammer-ons) higher up the neck.

One of my other drop tops had a similar issue, but it has the 4-bolt joint and I was able to loosen the bolts and push it over a little bit.

With the wedgie joint, is there any way to adjust the side-to-side alignment?

I have two Atoms and both have plenty of room on the treble side.

All of these guitars have 1 11/16" nut width.

[tom]

i would first check to see if the saddles are splayed to that side. i have seen that from shipping. you can usually push them back where they belong with just finger pressure.

[MapleGuitar]

I restrung and pushed the saddles over while tightening down the strings. It helped to even out the spacing, but still didn't give me enough space between the treble E and the edge of the neck.
Is the bridge spacing (high E to low E) wider than on my Atoms?

[tom]

slightly wider, but just slightly. how does the space look on the outside of high and low E? if it doesn't look pretty darn equal we'll have to get it back here to check it out.

[MapleGuitar]

Originally, the guitar measured (15th fret):
* 12/64 between the bass E and neck edge
* 8/64 between the treble E and neck edge.

Splaying the saddles made it closer to even, but still gave me treble E fall-off when playing. So I loosened the neck, leaned on it a little, tightened it up and now I've got...
* 9/64 on the bass side
* 11/64 on the treble side

These measurements were all with the StewMac tool and my old eyes with reading glasses. When comparing specs with my Atoms, Classics, and other Drop Tops, there's not much difference guitar to guitar -- so perhaps teeny differences in fret beveling make it more or less of an issue. My acid tests are the solo in Lincoln Brewster's "Let the Praises Ring" and also Jeff Beck's "Jeff's Boogie."

[tom]

how ever it could have happened, if it's not cool with you, we need to take care of it, so if it's a problem it needs to get to us.