Neck setting day

Setting the neck is super important, and very tricky. We spent all day doing it, slowly and painstakingly, with a lot of help. Think of it this way... The neck has to fit so that it is flush with the shoulders of the guitar and the tongue of the fretboard sits flat on the face of the guitar. AND the angle has to be right so that the strings come across the bridge with enough (but not too much) of an angle... this is called the "pitch" of the neck. AND the centerline of the neck and the body have to be lined up. And the neck joint is a pivot place for all of this, so teeny tiny increments can make a huge difference. We used a combination of chiseling, sanding sticks and strips of paper sandwiched in between the neck and shoulder and pulled through (in the picture)... even counting the number of pulls through so as to keep it even, or strategically remove more from one place or another. Very tricky, b/c everything affects everything else, and you kind of have to bring all these dimensions in at once. Good chisel skills help (which I don't yet have), and patience (most days I'm pretty good about that).