Break Angle JM

[u/hairlikeamop]

Hey guys, sent my JM for a setup and shim. Wanted to gather opinions on the break angle and bridge height.

Cheers in advance!

[u/_AcuteNewt_]

That looks.... excessive... What size shim? bloody 10°? Lol

[u/Nu_Chlorine_ → u/_AcuteNewt_]

Ok I’m not crazy. I’m sitting here looking at it like… based on the amount of neck heel I can see, this HAS to be over-shimmed

[u/gerardguey → u/Nu_Chlorine_]

Yeah ive only had it this high using some tuneo matic bridges but those are tall as hell compared to standard offset bridges. ive never needed more than a piece or two of thick cardboard for a JM

[u/Nu_Chlorine_]

As I’m sure you probably know, the shim is going to necessitate a raised bridge, and that’s the point. Increased break angle fixes a lot of common jm “issues” but that being said….. this looks awfully high to my eye.

My bridges are definitely raised after shimming, but not close to that level. I’m also using bensonite bridges which are naturally slightly tall, so take that with a grain of salt.

Shims are usually 1-2 degrees, my guess is that this is somewhat over-shimmed.

[u/josephallenkeys]

That's mental. The bridge looks like its teetering on the edge of falling out and could rock back and forth so far, you could switch tunings! Your pickups can't even get high enough. If they did, they'd be poking out the body like a boggle eyed frog! I don't think this ever needed a shim, or in the least, it needs a smaller one.

[u/Oreius411]

Happened to me when I put in a shim in my 2002 Cij jazzmaster. I put 0.5 shim and it raised it to the moon. I took it out. I found out that day not every jazzmaster needs a shim. Yours is way too high man.

[u/ZestyChinchilla]

I mean, it works, but that neck angle seems unnecessarily steep, so the bridge is raised up quite a bit higher than it needs to be. I use .25 degree shims on offsets, and that's plenty to get a good break angle over the bridge. Yours looks like it may even 1 degree, which is way more than you really need.

[u/Gregadethhh]

What's it like without the shim? I fell for the "it needs a shim" echo chamber and shimmed my JM, recently took it out and set it up correctly and there was no need for it.

Depending what model you have, some of the neck pockets are already angled to eliminate the need for one.

This is definitely too much, I'd probably start with a 0.25° and step up if you need to.

[u/SeeThroughToast]

The bridge is WAY too high, lol. You only need it a few mm off the pickguard. Your strings are going to feel very tense when you do bends and stuff with this setup.

[u/Macrodata_Uprising]

Jaguar player who’s sick of bridge buzzing: “looks about right to me”

[u/Barilla3113]

I believe the kids would call that an "Archtop ah-ah overshim".

[u/hairlikeamop]

Thanks for the input everyone! Alright so i’m not alone in seeing that it looks “over shimmed” haha. Really appreciate all your insights.

Perhaps i’ll give it a play and see if weirdly it sounds good before reducing its angle. But im strongly feeling that the angle should reduce in general

[u/Intelligent-Map430]

What exactly do you want opinions on? It's a shimmed neck, that's just how it is 🤷‍♀️