Dupont nomade neck angle

Twang

I have been playing a Dupont Nomade the last 3 years. It’s a great guitar but I’ve been thinking about improving the set up recently. It came with a number 3 bridge but the action was too low without shims so I bought a number 4 bridge which is the highest bridge Dupont make. The action is still a little low with more relief in the neck than I’d like. Having a straighter neck will most likely make the action feel even lower. The obvious answer is to shim the bridge but I was thinking a better solution might be to shim the neck and steepen the neck angle. This is an option I have cos the nomade has a bolt on neck like a strat.

Does this sound like a good idea? What problems might occur? Will it likely affect intonation and volume. If it works I was thinking of getting a luthier to make a permanent shim.

pdg

If there is too much neck relief you should fix that first, by adjusting the truss rod. But this should also lower the action as s side effect. Bob Holo recommends .011" of neck relief. It could be a little more. If you put a capo at the 1st fret and then press down a string at the 12th or 14th fret, a .011" (or .012 or .013 if you like) feeler gauge (or .011" or other width string), should just be able to slip between the fret and the string (you could try this on the 6th string or the 1st string, or any string).

You could bring this to a luthier or repairperson to adjust the truss rod. Once the neck relief is proper, you can adjust the action with shims or a different bridge, or possibly with the bolt-on system. Higher action might slightly increase neck relief -- if that happens you could readjust the truss rod and recheck the action (it might be an iterative process).