fixing a misaligned fender guitar neck

What I will describe to you in a moment actually works for almost any bolt-on neck, but it's the Fender and Squier guitars where people notice this the most.

Misaligned guitar neck defined: This is when the high-E string or low-E string is too close to the edge of the neck, causing it to buzz out like crazy and/or "jump" off the fretboard during guitar play.

Examine this photo first:

That is my Squier Classic Vibe '60s Jazzmaster. When I first bought this guitar, the high-E string was way too close to the edge of the fretboard, so I had to fix this.

How to fix a misaligned bolt-on neck:

With the guitar fully tuned to pitch, loosen the rear screws about a half-turn each.

If the high-E string is too close to the fretboard, have the fretboard facing you, grab the neck at the first fret and push to the left. While pushing, look at the high-E string 21st or 22nd fret position, and you should see things start to straighten out. Once it's to your liking, tighten the rear screws on the high-E side first, then the low-E side afterward.

If the low-E string is too close to the fretboard, do the reverse. Loosen rear screws a half-turn, have the fretboard facing you, grab the neck at 1st fret position and push to the right while looking at the low-E string 21st/22nd fret position. Once things are straightened out, tighten the screws on the low-E side first, then high-E side afterward.

"I can get it aligned, but I can't get the neck to hold position while tightening the rear screws."

Get a friend to help. With the rear screws loosened that half-turn, have your friend grab the neck and push into the aligned position while you watch the fretboard. When the desired alignment is achieved, you tighten the rear screws while the neck is being held by your friend.

"That didn't work either. What now?"

Use a side shim in the neck pocket. This is a desperation maneuver and will most likely result in showing a neck pocket gap afterward, but when you want that neck aligned and you've tried everything else, this is what you do.

If for example the high-E is too close to the edge of the fretboard and that's the side you need to align, you detune the strings, put a capo on the first fret, unscrew the neck, take it out of the neck pocket, then put a business card on the treble side of the neck pocket. After that, neck goes back in, reinstall screws, tune up strings a little, take off capo, tune the strings up to pitch and see if it worked.

You may have to do this a few times depending on how bad the misalignment is, but more often than not, it should work on the first try.

On my Jazzmaster, I fortunately did not need to use a side shim.

Why does this happen in the first place? Bad QC?

It's not a lack of quality control that causes this, it's shipping.

Yes, really.

Long time Fender guitar players jokingly call what I just described the "UPS fix". During transit, the guitar gets jostled around and sometimes the neck gets knocked out of alignment. This is why you will sometimes see brand new Fender and Squier guitars with a misaligned neck (including very high-end models as no bolt-on guitar is immune to this). This is a very well known thing with bolt-on guitar necks.

And yes, this means YOU can cause a neck misalignment just from transporting your guitar in the trunk of a car to a gig, or from accidentally knocking the guitar off a stand to the floor.

How bad was my Jazzmaster neck misalignment?

Look at the photo again and imagine the high-E string almost touching the edge of the fretboard. That's how bad it was. All it took to fix it was loosening the rear screws, a push to the left, tighten back up and then it played properly.

Again, it wasn't a QC issue that caused this. The guitar got banged around a bit before it got to the guitar store and knocked the neck out of alignment. I realigned it, and then it was good.

Published 2024 Aug 6