How to Adjust Taylor Guitar Neck Shims

Over time, conventional acoustic guitar necks may bend out of alignment.

Traditional acoustic guitar construction methods attached the neck to the guitar body with a glued, dovetail joint. As the guitar aged, however, continuous tension from its steel strings tended to pull the neck forward and out of alignment with the body. The permanent nature of the glued joint did not lend itself to adjustment when this occurred. Taylor Guitars introduced bolt-on removable necks to facilitate neck adjustments using drop-in shims. Computer-controlled milling machines mortice two slots into the body of the guitar to mate the neck/fingerboard. Laser-cut wooden shims graduated in thousands of an inch may be inserted into the morticed slots to modify the neck angle and alignment. The neck is secured with three bolts, accessible from within the body of the guitar.

Things You'll Need

• Allen wrench

Instructions

1. Unstring the guitar. Lay the guitar flat. Sequentially loosen each string by rotating the tuning pegs gradually until all strings are slack. Unwind each string from its tuning peg and pull the end out of the hole in the tuning shaft. At the bridge of the guitar, extract the string pegs and pull the ball of the string out of the peg hole.

2. Locate the two Allen bolts extending horizontally through reinforced blocks in the interior of the guitar body into stainless steel threaded inserts in the heel of the guitar neck. A single Allen bolt extends vertically through the top of the guitar into a stainless steel threaded insert in the fingerboard. A small mirror may be used to locate the vertical fingerboard Allen bolt.

3. Unscrew the three Allen bolts and separate the neck/fingerboard from the guitar body.

4. Select the desired shim. Custom shims are available from the manufacturer with tolerances clearly stamped on each. Adjustments to the angle of the neck may be made from neutral into the positive or negative range, depending upon the tolerance of shim.

5. Mate the neck/fingerboard with the guitar body and secure with the three Allen bolts.

6. Restring the guitar. Insert each string ball into its peg hole and press the string peg in to secure it in place. Route each string over the bridge and nut to its corresponding tuning peg. Cut off excess string with a wire cutter. Make a slight bend in the string and feed it through the hole in the tuning peg. Apply slight tension to the string and rotate the tuning peg counterclockwise to take up the slack. Wind each string sequentially until all strings are tight. Tune the guitar normally.

References

• Frets.com: Taylor Guitar's New Neck Joint