I picked up the red/black strat the other day and noticed a big gap between the neck and body. I could fit my thumbnail in there easily. I was kind of shocked. I didn't know how it got this way. The first guitar (sapele body/maple neck/cocobolo FB) has been rock solid all along. I thought this was how they would all be.
At first I thought the screws had become loose so I tightened the screws but the gap remained. Also, I could see how the neck had bowed forward, something I didn't expect because the maple I used for that neck had a back bow. I was worried because I thought something was going on that was beyond my ability to comprehend. I've had this belief for a long time there's a mystique to building guitars that can only be unraveled after decades of apprenticeship under a master.
Today I took the guitar down to the shop and removed the neck. I found that gap was my fault. Apparently (and I really don't remember this) I had to re-rout the neck pocket a bit deeper (it's coming back to me, vaguely) because there was no evidence of finish in the pocket. When I did that, I left a small lip on one side and so the neck was never fully seated in the pocket. I took a couple of chisels and fixed that.
I also found some of the flat surface of the body had ripples in it. The ripples followed the maple figure. So the wood was moving, not with the grain, but with the figure. And one spot had ripples that looked like the lacquer sagged. That wasn't there after 4 weeks of curing. Interesting thing is none of these kinds of things appeared on the first guitar.
Why did the maple move so much? And there's a break in the lacquer where the two halves were glued together. Is this normal?