Sticker between neck and body on electric guitar

Question

I have a Fender Highway One American strat, and after removing the neck (bolt-on), I found that there are two stickers one the base of the neck where it makes contact with the body. Will this impact the tone or the sustain of the guitar? I was under the impression that joint between the neck and the body is pretty crucial to the sound of the guitar.

Is it worth it to remove the stickers? While I have the neck removed, is there anything else I could do to either the neck or the body to make sure they are mechanically/acoustically coupled better (e.g. sand the surfaces, etc)?

Answer 1

Wood-to-wood contact is ideal. I seriously doubt the stickers are making a discernible difference in sound, but YMMV. If you do decide to remove them, you may find that the tilt of the neck relative to the body has been altered -- it takes less than a millimeter at the joint to adversely affect the angle and therefore playability. Do this with caution and with the expectation that you may need to add a shim to restore the correct angle. I would personally leave it alone unless you already have issues related to the tilt angle.

Answer 2

Every little thing can affect the way a guitar sounds and plays. If you are an experimenter you might choose to remove the stickers and discern for yourself the effect it has on the sound and playability. Removing the stickers may also affect the vintage collectability of the instrument in the future. In fact any alterations to the instrument may affect future collectability if that is of concern to you. An individual instrument has its own sound partially because of the way it's built and affected by the way it is played. If you like the way it sounds when you play it, keep it the way it is. If not, you may choose to make alterations. Personally, I subscribe to the old saying, "if it ain't broke don't fix it", but others may recommend differently.