Sanding The Finish Out Of The Neck Pocket

It's a really nice warm Saturday, and it was perfect for doing some work on the Strat. I've ordered some hardware and tools from StewMac, but I won't get them until the upcoming week. I ended up getting some chrome Schaller locking tuners, a specially sized drill bit that the tuners require (#38, which is in between 3/32 and 7/64, making it essentially 13/128, argghhhhh), and some other assorted goodies.

I still need to get a drill press before I do any drilling (the handheld one I've got is nice, but it just won't be good enough to drill everything plumb, level, and square).

Anyway, I decided to go ahead and sand the finish out of the neck pocket for today.

Here's an example of the finish that's in the neck pocket, causing problems for the neck fit:

The extra bits of finish actually knock the neck holes out of alignment from the holes in the neck pocket of the body, so that's why I decided to do the sanding. I started off with just some 180-grit sandpaper and a diamond sharpening plate that I use to level knife sharpening stones. The plate is pretty flat so I used it for keeping the sandpaper flat.

Sanding the finish off is a total bastard.

I thought that a rough grit like 180 would be pretty quick in taking off the finish, but I spent about 20 minutes sanding and sanding one particular spot before I decided to grab a small chisel that I have. I ended up using it to take off as much finish as I could.

By the time I was ready to sand, I used the diamond plate to keep the sandpaper level for any spots where I needed it.

After about an hour, I finished sanding the top part of the neck pocket, and I was able to do a test fit of the neck. The gap that the old bits of finish causes was gone, but the screw holes were still not yet aligned.

I spent the next hour sanding the 2 straight sides of the pocket, and it allowed the side-to-side alignment of the holes to be right. At this point however, the neck fit into the pocket was no longer snug and I had to clamp my hands on the neck and pocket whenever I wanted to check the results of my work.

As you can see here, the side of the pocket is now flush with no extra finish:

These pictures also show the heel part of the pocket also sanded, but it's not quite perfect yet. After a long time sanding the heel, the vertical alignment between the neck holes and body holes are still not quite right because I've got about another 1/10th or so of the hole length to go. At least the pesky finish has been taken off and the bottom of the neck and the top of the pocket are now virtually have no gap when I do a test fit.

The top of the pocket is pretty level at this point. I didn't bother to take out the last bits of finish, because by this point, the problem was gone.

The heel of the neck pocket joint still has some base coat/finish left over, but sanding this was really difficult.

I really wanted to work fast here, but I ended up scratching the body a bit because of how I was holding the sandpaper. A bit of it would catch the body, but I didn't notice until I realized it had already roughed up a bit of the finish.

Luckily, the area is going to be covered with the pickguard, and to be honest, it's just a small cosmetic issue. I want the guitar to be a workhorse, and I'd much rather it have good specs and comfort as opposed to something that looks great but doesn't fit the way it should.

Here's the pocket with the light coming in from a different angle:

Scratches in the finish. (Dammit!)

After spending 2.5 hrs chiseling, sanding, checking over and over again, the gaps have been reduced but the alignment is still not yet perfect. (As to why removing material reduces the gaps, it's because the extra finish in the neck pocket isn't flush, so bits of it were wedging up against the neck and stretching the neck pocket a little bit. After removing material to make it flush, the fit no longer has to be forced in, and the neck pocket isn't stretching to make the fit.) However, most of the finish has now been removed from the pocket, so I would consider this a decently productive day. I'll start working on the neck sometime next week and I'll revisit this neck pocket when I'm closer to being able to fit the neck to it.