Are shims any good for a guitar?.

[mushman]

I removed the neck on one of my guitars to find 2 peices of a buisness card stuck in the pocket as a shim.
The tech who set it up before I got it felt that a straight neck with a shim was better than a neck with some bow in it.
The truss rod adjustments need to be done with the neck off so granted it is a pain in the ass.
Since a tight neck pocket and neck to body contact are critical,wouldn't a shim kill some sustain?,or is it common practice to do this?.
Any way I took them out and will loosen up the truss rod a little and lower the action and see what happens.

[Thrashman]

It's personal preference i suppose, i mean.. Sometimes you HAVE to shim the neck, but if you dont have to, and prefer it without shims, then take em out...

[jet66]

Sometimes they are used to adjust the angle of the neck when you add a Floyd or other bridge that is taller than what was originally on it. (I think it is a 2 degree difference from a vintage/Fender trem to an OFR, for example.) The only other option is to carefully route the neck for the desired angle difference, which many people don't really like to undertake themselves.

It could lessen the sustain/energy transfer between the neck and body to use shims, but not necessarily in a noticeable fashion. If you would have never known that it was shimmed before removing the neck, and the guitar resonated fine for you, I'd leave it how it was. Nothing worse than fixing something that ain't broke and really hosing things up, tonally speaking.