Nerdtastic! 3D-Printed Neck Shims

Just a quickie this week but one that a subset of us guitar nerds might find interesting.

Thank you to Joey for passing this on…

Hero image with a depiction of a 3D-printed neck shim. The shim is wedge shaped and sized to fit a guitar neck pocket.

So, you know how I’m always chiding anyone in earshot that they should all use full-pocket, wedge-shaped shims if they want to shim a bolt-on neck. I’ve talked about making your own from hardwood (a tedious job) and the possibility of buying a precision-cut shim from Stew Mac.

Well, it turns out it's possible to print your own tapered shim now too.

If you’ve access to a 3D printer, you can download a 3D model file to print a full-pocket, wedge-shaped shim. That’s an interesting prospect.

Even more interesting, if you know what you’re doing you can even edit the STL file to alter the specifications of the final shim to match exactly what you need.

I don’t have a 3D printer and know almost nothing of the skills needed to edit these files. I also haven't used a 3D-printed shim so I can’t offer a particular endorsement or recommendation on any this stuff. For my money, the rendering* on the linked shim file above makes the shim look a little thick. However, I’m reliably informed there are other downloads available if you know where to look (and if you use a 3D printer, you probably know where to look). Or, as mentioned, you could edit the file (or create your own) to adjust the final, printed shim.

Venn daagram showing small intersection between 3d-printing nerds and guitar nerds — Yeah, you gotta be pretty nerdy. 😄

Like I say, this is probably relevant to only a subset of nerds but, the 3D printing thing seems to have gained a lot of ground on making the crossover to a larger, not-so-nerdy market. Knowing a printed shim is a possibility could be a useful fact to file away at the back of your brain.

Hope it's helpful (or at least thought-provoking) to some of you. If you try this, let me know how you get on.

*Somewhere between the time I first looked at the 3D model download and the time I wrote this, the thumbnail image disappeared from thingiverse (the download site). The image below is a similar view.