Russo Music Visits Taylor Guitar Factory
If you are like I was a couple years ago (ok, maybe a day ago), you might think that you know everything about acoustic guitars. You might even consider yourself an expert. For many of us, we live our lives believing this and are fine with it. However this past week I was invited out to visit the Taylor Guitar factory in El Cajon for training and a tour of their facility. Being a Taylor Guitar owner, I thought, ok, well I guess I will get to see the machine that makes these guitars and maybe get a T Shirt out of it.
Upon arriving in San Diego I was happy to find that Taylor had put me in a hotel in the heart of Old Town San Diego. That night we (my co-worker Brendan and I) were to meet with some of the Taylor sales staff and other management personnel for a dinner at a local bar and grill. We were greeted with Margaritas and pretty good food from the area. At this time I wondered, what are we doing here? Shouldn’t we be eating at the hotel? Shouldn’t we have “drink” cards? Surely this is just a sales tactic to “buy” our brand loyalty, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
At dinner we were told to dress comfortable, in shorts and comfortable shoes since we would be doing a lot of walking the next day. Great, so all my dress clothes I brought to the “rich guy” guitar factory isn’t going to work! This was a common theme as the stereotypes I had about Taylor were to be broken down over the next couple of days.
We arrived at Taylor early in the morning after the complimentary hotel breakfast, which I thought, here we go, last night’s dinner would be the highlight of our Taylor provided food. Again, another presumption soon to be smashed into a million pieces upon arriving at the factory. Over the next couple days Taylor provided good hippy style breakfast food.
After stuffing my pockets with free granola bars because I knew that lunch wouldn’t be provided we were informed that Bob Taylor would be giving us our tour, awesome! He will come in, walk us about 10 feet and hand us off to the “Guitar Maker 9000” machine operator. Wrong. Bob stuck with us for hours, explaining to us in detail every aspect of his philosophies’ on guitar building and the culture of the company and we had a Greek style catered lunch.
First on the tour would be tents filled with piles of uncut boards of wood, literally TONS of wood just waiting to be loaded into the “Guitar Maker 9000”. Piles of Koa, Mahogany,and Indian Rosewood were on display.
Bob explaining how Koa is obtained
At this time Bob Mentioned a common theme, the environment and the impact guitar makers can have on it. The passion that I found everyone in that company had for conservation was refreshing, it wasn’t about a bumper sticker, it wasn’t about composting your mornings banana peel, it was about flying to Honduras, getting on a donkey and choosing the right tree, right natives and right cutting methods to get the most wood out of said tree. Small things Taylor does to recycle un-used scraps are grinding them up and mixing it with tops soil for compost or having containers of scrap wood ready for burning at the beach, hippies.
Bob explaining how to cut a piece of Koa to get the most out of it
Next on our guided tour would be where the “Guitar Maker 9000” point of view was crushed. After a top has been cut down to size and graded (by hand) by a woman who has been doing this for 17 years and has graded over 600,000 guitars, they make their way to this sanding shop. At this point the tops go through essential a big sander that is adjusted per top by employees that Bob introduced by their first names. I was amazed to see how Bob knew everyone’s name.
Spruce tops being prepped for sanding by Taylor employee
Also in the same building was an oven for cooking wood. At that point Bob started breaking down some chemistry stuff about drying wood, dew points and more things I probably would understand if I were a better student in high school.
Bob bakes wood
From there we entered a climate-controlled room for laser (finally a laser!) cutting assorted parts of acoustic and electric guitars. Also in this room wood is stored in various stages of drying or in some cases being fluffed back up by the humidity in the room. Taylor takes time before assembling their guitars to make sure the wood has reached its optimal humidity level. One thing I found that was cool is that when assembling their guitar necks the let every neck settle in by holding them up with pins that barely touch the wood, and after every adjustment they use a different set of pins positioned in new spots each time to ensure accuracy.
Cutting backs
Next on our tour we stopped in a small 10x10 room with a guy slumped over like Gepetto laying sound hole inlays. Very cool, it was nice to see that after not seeing any real hand tools up until that point.
Worker lays it down
Another interesting story came up in this room about how Taylor works around problems. For the T5 guitars Bob wanted a small black line between the wood and “f hole” binding. So here is where more lasers come in, the top of the guitar has a laser burn around the outside of the “f hole” and then Taylor designed the binding as a disc that lies in from the back. So instead of having a more complicated binding to produce, Taylor has been able to streamline the process, save costs and material this way. In turn Taylor can save material, which helps with their conservation efforts.
Through our next set of doors was the spray booth. Bob says a bunch of fancy things I still don’t understand, but basically the deal is that the way the spray booth is set up, they lose only about 20% of material, while other guitar companies loose close to 80%. Bob could not have been clearer about the concerns he had for the environment with current painting techniques. I cannot see this method saving money over a traditional spray booth but I could be wrong. A company in Italy makes the machines Taylor uses specifically for them. They also use a similar machine for the first stages of buffing.
Guitars wait for their first coat
You should know that from this point on, almost every machine you will see has been designed and built BY Taylor on campus. So they make their own tools, not tools like screw drives, tools like pneumatic machines for bending sides. The first of these machines we were to see in action was a rough cutter for necks. It is a large disc that spins with necks on it as a worker lays them in.
Neck rough cutter
To me this seemed like the main production floor. There were machines for rough cutting fret boards, head stock logos, and hand-operated machines for setting frets. All the hand machines and vises are at eye level to ensure everything comes out the way Taylor intends.
Frets ready to be set
For the next hour or so Bob went into great detail on every aspect of the NT neck and why he thinks it is superior. We also got to experience other aspects of the assembly on the necks. During this time we were also given a tour of the room where kerfings are glued by hand.
Kerfings being glued and held in place by Taylor designed clamps
It should be noted that when the guitars are being worked on they are normally held down by suction to be sure that no accidents will happen during manufacturing. These are the small things that were mentioned that I found really interesting and refreshing. Most tours and training seminars seem not to touch on these things. It almost feels like Bob’s passion for guitars does not allow him NOT to mention these things, it is just that important to him.
During the assembly process all kerfings are glued by hand. There is a team of workers that work on final assembly, which includes a unique way to shim necks. A set of shims is laser cut to angles varying .001 of an inch. The neck pocket is machine routed to ensure proper neck fit. What is cool about this system is that if you are across the world and are having an issue with your neck angle, you can bring your guitar to a service center, they can pop the neck off and tell Taylor what shims are in there. From there Taylor can just send you the proper shims without having to ship the guitar.
Worker glues in kerfings
There was a whole hour devoted to the Taylor Expression system and K4 Eq. To read more on the specifics of how the ES System works you can read about it HERE. A couple interesting features I could point out is how Taylor has migrated from 2 body sensors to 1 recently and how they are constantly refining the system. As far as assembly, workers essential make “kits” to put in a guitar and during the assembly process they are installed.
Last on the tour was the R.Taylor room. Which is a little more old world and boutique when it comes to guitar building. Taylor is currently refining the way they take orders for this division and the future of the division. Needless to say we saw lots of prototypes for future products and some really high-end one offs.
Towards the end of the tour and end of the day we had a informal Q and A with Bob and his apprentice Andy. One question that was raised had to do with the amount of skilled labor in the plant (nearly 600 workers). I found it interesting that skilled laborers get a 3 day working interview that they get paid for. Taylor then figures out what their natural abilities push them towards doing well. So if you got a good eye for angles, you are probably going to be working on necks. Then Bob and Andy broke out a blues song to showcase some of the guitars they had on hand. From there it was BBQ for dinner and back to the hotel to think about the day.
For me it is hard to sum up the tour and day. Do I still think that the “Guitar Maker 9000” makes Taylor Guitars? Do I like Taylor LESS because human hands touch these guitars every step of the way? I guess I am a little confused as I always had these preconceived notions about the manufacturing process of these guitars. But I can say this, Taylor does not cut corners and whether you like the way the guitars sound, play or feel, when you pick up a Taylor guitar for the first time from the factory, it is exactly how they planned.
Taylor does not try to compete with more of the old world companies, in fact, there are employees from the more traditional acoustic companies on campus everyday to learn new techniques (yes, Taylor trains employees from other companies). Bob views this as a rising tides raise all ships point of view. Bob also truly wants to educate on conservation of the environment. Which is the biggest thing I came away with. Bob and Taylor as a company does more for the environment than write on recycled paper, they are leaders in our industry.
So next time you stop in your local music store and look at a Taylor guitar, realize that for that neck Bob flew to Honduras, got on a donkey, chose the tree, natives, and cutting method to ensure playability and conservation of the environment.
Video
Photo Gallery
