Removed neck & found something?

[Moondog]

a small, thin, rectangular, washer-like, piece of plastic popped out from somewhere in the neck joint of my SR5. It had a hole @ each end. When I removed the 6 screws & neck plate there were another 2 holes beneath the plate that seem to line up with this foreign plastic find (the plastic piece was in the neck joint, not under the plate). I don't think the two holes and plastic piece serve an important funtion other than during the manufacturing practice. I want to discard this piece of plastic & put the neck back on. Am I missing somethin? What's it for? It's not terribly important, right? Thanks.

 

[jubjub721]

well i found a pice similar to what u say
but
it was in a 30 dollar guitar i bought at a garage sale
so i woulld try to put it back in just incase it lessened vibration or somthing like that

 

[Rod Trussbroken]

Don't discard it... it could be a shim. A shim adjusts the angle of the neck to allow sufficient travel adjustment of the string saddles. If you leave it out, and put the neck back on, you may find the strings sitting too high off the fret board...action will be higher. In turn, you may not be able to lower the saddles sufficiently to compensate.

 

[bovinehost]

It is in fact a shim. Put it back. Lots of Fenders and EBMM basses are (properly) shimmed from the factory.

 

[Psychicpet]

yes, all you $30 guitar playin' whipper-snappers take note, shims are OK and are absolutely normal and NOT a sign of weakness!!!! So don't post no nothin's about how it may be a "flaw" it's not!!

 

[Moondog]

Thanks folks, that makes sense & is TRUE. When I put the neck on w/o the shim the action was terribly high.

Now, where the heck do I put the shim now? I'm assuming the proper place is to align it with the (2) neck-joint screws closest to the bridge to adjust the neck appropriately & bring the action down; that makes the most sense to me (the two holes in the shim appear to align w/the two neck-joint screws). Any ideas?

Maybe I'll just wait until the factory opens in the morning & give them a call.