choking from 12th fret up.

[Stevepage]

Hiya, On my Strat, I recently put a bit of thin card in the neck pocket to act as a shim. Now I've adjusted the height from the saddles and the neck as some relief but when I bend more than a tone on G B E strings, It chokes up. Quite annoying.

How can I go about getting a relatively low action without the choke? Problem is, it's a vintage style radius neck, which I know are prone to this, but this is a bit silly isn't it?

[Oli]

I don't think it's possible to get low action and big bends with a vintage radiused neck-- they were designed to make chording comfortable, and the flatter profiles are better for bends. The only solution (other than getting a different neck), is to raise the action up... if you look down the neck as you bend a string, you can see why it's making it choke, and why a low action just isn't going to happen with that style of neck. Sorry!

[Paradigm]

Hiya, On my Strat, I recently put a bit of thin card in the neck pocket to act as a shim. Now I've adjusted the height from the saddles and the neck as some relief but when I bend more than a tone on G B E strings, It chokes up. Quite annoying.

How can I go about getting a relatively low action without the choke? Problem is, it's a vintage style radius neck, which I know are prone to this, but this is a bit silly isn't it?

Why did you add the shim?

[Ratrod]

Some questions before I can help.

A: Why the shim?

B: 7.25" radius?

C: How's the neck relief? (Press down the high E on the first fret with a capo and last fret and measure the distance between the top of the 8th fret and the bottom of the string.

D: How are the frets? Any tall or flat ones?

C: What string gauge?

One thing that can be done to prevent choking with vinatge Fender radius boards is to dress the frets to a compound radius.

[Stevepage]

A: Why the shim?
It originally came with one, but years ago when I was fiddling with the neck it fell out and I lost it. Thought i'd put one back in.

B: 7.25" radius?
Yep

C: How's the neck relief? (Press down the high E on the first fret with a capo and last fret and measure the distance between the top of the 8th fret and the bottom of the string.
Haven't got the guitar with me right now.

D: How are the frets? Any tall or flat ones?
Frets are pretty fine, they're 6100 size and I've never had problems with them before.

C: What string gauge?
9-46

[FELINEGUITARS]

A shim under the end of the neck can cause distortion in the neck or cause a high spot  that will manifest itself when trying to bend a string.
Was the choking there before you replaced the shim?
Was the shim needed to get a decent action without having the bridge saddles too low and grub screws sticking out too far?

My advice is to have the relief in the neck as little as possible whilst still having notes below the 7th fret not choking or muffling , this straightening of the neck wil cause the action to lower a bit
So raise the action to where it was before- this will give maximum clearance for the strings above the 7th fret - especially past the 12th.

Ideally the neck should have fallaway towards the end of the fingerboard and maybe some compound radius dressed into the frets at the higher end to allow for cleaner bending.(fender necks are cylindrical and this combined with their tight radius can cause serious choking problems - fallaway and compound radiusing the higher frets can help)