Customizing my Taylor 514ce

[Justin Tugaoen]

A few weeks ago my wife and I went to San Diego and took a side trip to visit the Taylor factory and had a great experience seeing a large scale operation. Anyway, we got to see some very nice BTO (build to order) guitars, with various inlays and other "custom" features, which inspired me to do something with my own Taylor. I've got a Taylor 514ce which my wife gave me for our 10th anniversary, with fairly basic appointments; i.e. dot fingerboard markers, a simple rosette with a thin koa line, and not much else. So I got up the courage to make it more interesting by cutting out a sound port on the upper bout, which has really made a big difference in the sound which I hear while playing, and I also did a wooden leaves inlay theme, inlaying the fingerboard to replacing the dot markers, the truss rod cover (which also got a MOP cross) and the bridge. The most stressful part was cutting out the sound port, but the inlays weren't too difficult even with the frets in the way, the bridge already mounted, and simply trying not to damage the guitar in the process. Overall a fun project and worthwhile on my anniversary guitar-this is definitely one I'll keep forever!

[Clay Schaeffer]

Nice job!