News & Updates
Setups, upgrades, custom builds and anything else I'm working on
Taylor Acoustic Neck Reset
17th February, 2026
I recently worked on this beautiful Taylor acoustic, which came in with some high action at and above the 12th fret. All-in-all, it played pretty well, but the owner wanted to see if we could get it to be just a little bit more comfortable at the top of the neck.
After a quick inspection and some truss rod adjustment, it became clear that what was needed on this guitar was a neck reset. For those who aren't familiar, resetting the neck involves removing it from the body and literally re-setting it at a better angle for the strings, resulting in lower action and a more comfortable experience.
Now, a lot has already been written and said about Taylors and neck resets, mainly because of the ingenious system that is built into Taylor guitars. Usually, removing the neck from an acoustic guitar is a big job, requiring some special skills, some glue and a lot of patience!
Modern Taylor guitars, however, have bolt-on necks and a special system of precision engineered shims which fit under the neck joint and by changing the shims, you can change the angle of the neck without the mess and stress of separating a traditional glued neck joint.
Calculating the correct shim combination for the neck angle you're looking for is a bit of a dark art, but the shims are cut so precisely that you can adjust the height in 0.25mm increments, meaning you have some pretty precise control over the neck angle.
With a bit of trial-and-error, we managed to reset the neck at a much better angle and, as a result, the 12th fret action came down by just over 1mm, which is a win!
After some more adjustments and a good setup, the guitar plays really beautifully. As I say, you can look this up in a hundred places on the internet, but I wanted just to show you quickly what it looks like, because it’s very clever.
Custom Fender Jaguar With Internal Fuzz Circuit
26th November, 2025
A client recently brought in a custom Jaguar with an internal fuzz circuit. Yes, you read that right. The guitar actually has a fuzz pedal built in to it ..and it sounds wild!
The owner of this guitar had very cleverly removed the rhythm circuit and replaced it with a tiny PCB and battery, which created a switchable fuzz circuit using the original controls. Ingenious! As you can imagine, it involved some very clever wiring to make sure that the fuzz circuit uses both pickups. Traditionally, the Jaguar's rhythm circuit only enables the neck pickup and cuts off the bridge pickup. Add to that the 4-way switch and you have a lot going on under there!
It's hard to get your head around, but now you have 4 pickup combinations (Bridge, Neck, Series and Parallel), which you can use in 'standard' or fuzz mode! It's pretty amazing, I have to say. Very ambitious, but it all works.
The only problem was, it didn't work properly. Something wasn't right. So we got it on the bench and had a look.
So as I said, there is a lot going on under there. The wiring was pretty complicated and the grounding, although expertly done, meant that identifying the various wires was tricky. To be honest, the more I looked, the more impressed I got. It's not easy to wire up something like this!
After some initial investigation with the multimeter, it looked like the neck pickup wasn't behaving properly and, after quite a bit of testing, I discovered a break in the pickup wire. Now, usually that's a major problem, but I was feeling like I had to meet the challenge with this one, so I unwound about a third of the wire until I found the break. It's often tricky to repair breaks in pickups and the success rate is kind of 50/50, but on this occasion it worked pretty well and we achieved an output of about 6.4Ω, which is pretty good.
Once the neck pickup was reinstalled, I turned my attention to the 4-way switch. It looked like there might be some contact between the various soldered terminals, which was causing weird some combinations, so I separated all the wires and checked all the points, re-soldering two of them to make them nice and clean again. Then I electrically insulated the wires from each other using some shroud and put the whole thing back in it's pocket.
Happily, the whole thing worked perfectly. All the combinations or circuits and switches were seamless and after adjusting the pickup height a little, the guitar sounded on fire!
The last thing that needed some attention was the tremolo unit. It was making a clicking sound and it wasn't very smooth, so I took the whole thing to pieces, cleaned all the parts and lubricated the knife edge and the spring. Putting it back together, I checked that the arm had a smooth action and that the tension matched the tension of the strings, so that it floated properly. Once it was reinstalled, the whole thing was all nice and Kevin Shields.
From then on, it needed a good clean and a full setup. After some new strings and checks for relief, action and the tremolo, it was good to go.
My sincere thanks to the owner for letting me service this guitar. It was a great experience and I loved the uniqueness of it. I might try and do something similar myself some time!
1992 Squier Japan Telecaster Upgrade
17th July, 2025
I recently worked on this pretty rare 1992 Squier Japan Telecaster, which came in with some crackly electrics and badly corroded saddles at the bridge. As you can see, the control plate had been re-sited to 'fix' a hole that had become worn and too large for the screw. The nut was broken in two places and the whole instrument need a bit of love and attention.
It was pretty straightforward job in the end. I took out all the pickups and electrics, removed the neck and filled all the screw holes in the body. Then it was just a matter of re-drilling the holes, resetting the neck in the pocket and adding a new nut. I installed some new pickups (Fender American Vintage '62 at the neck and a P90 from Creamery Pickups at the bridge) and a Fender bridgeplate & with some nice brass compensated saddles for a slightly warmer sound and better intonation. The last thing to do was wire it all up with some new pots.
It looks pretty nice now, I think, and it sounds really good: a bit of a Strat vibe and the P90 in the bridge gives it some growl and I think it's is a nice addition.
Incidentally, I looked up the 1992 Fender Japan catalogue and this guitar is in it. It's hard to see in this picture, but the Telecaster was ¥33,000, which was the equivalent of about £210. Not a high end guitar, but still not cheap in 1992. The build quality is very good for the price though and if you ever see one for sale, I would really recommend picking it up.
[Update] I spotted this Instagram post about Squier Japan. The history of Fender MIJ guitars is really interesting. Check it out.
1996 Squier 50th Anniversary Telecaster Upgrade
12th June, 2025
This is my own 1996 Squier 50th Anniversary Telecaster. I have owned this guitar for nearly 30 years now and it's been gigged and dropped and chucked around the back seats of countless cars in its lifetime.
It was my first guitar and although I love it, it never sounded that great. The neck is lovely, smooth and comfortable and the body is a made from a single piece of alder, which is fairly unusual for an entry level guitar, but the hardware was pretty cheap and it never stayed in tune properly. It was also neglected and pretty dirty after all those years, so I though it could do with a makeover.
I wanted it to be an fun instrument to play and I figured it was a good guitar to take a bit of a gamble on, so I decided to add a Bigbsy tremolo arm, a new bridge and some new pickups.
I started by taking the whole thing to pieces. I took out all the pickups and electrics and removed the neck. Then I cleaned everything and began the process of measuring up for Bigsby. Lining up the bridge is tricky and small inaccuracies in your measurements can mean a real headache later. Once the bridge and tremolo were in place, I installed a pair of Fender Pure Vintage '64 pickups and some new pots.
The neck is pretty good, so I didn't do much to it apart from adjusting the truss rod. I added a new nut and some string trees to help with the tuning stability. Lastly, I added a new set of Fender vintage tuners and a custom scratchplate.
Then it was just a matter making sure everything was properly fitted and setting it up. The action was a bit high over the Bigsby bridge, so I lowered it a little. The pickup heights were quite different, so I balanced them as much as possible.
The finished article sounds really nice now. The '64 pickups are quite glassy, though, and with the Bigsby, the whole thing sounds quite bright. I may change them for something mellower some day, but for now it sounds punchy and twangy and I really like it.
