Acoustic Guitar: R. Taylor Guitars

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R. Taylor Guitars
His manufacturing innovations have influenced the way acoustic guitars are built in virtually every other major factory. Now Bob Taylor is creating a line of small-production custom instruments.

By Teja Gerken

Photo Credit: Teja Gerken

Bob Taylor has always been a luthier with a vision. More than 30 years ago, this vision was focused on building guitars for his own use in his high school’s woodshop; years later, it was about reinventing the way quality acoustic guitars are built in a factory setting. Having pioneered countless manufacturing techniques—including bolt-on necks, the use of CNC machines, and UV-cured finishes—that have been adapted by other companies, Taylor is now acting on his latest idea: a low-production, high-end line of steel-string flattops. Unveiled at last January’s NAMM show, the result is a completely new brand: R. Taylor.

At first glance, the new line may seem like a Lexus/Toyota–type arrangement, in which a luxurious high-end product is created on the foundation of a more affordable model. The coincidental introduction of the R. Taylor Style One (which starts at $4,300, including a custom Ameritage case) and Taylor’s visually similar Grand Symphony (which features the same body shape) contributed to this perception. Yet—to refine the automotive analogy—R. Taylor is to Taylor what the ultraluxury Maybach revival model is to Mercedes: a custom-made ride assembled by a small team of highly skilled craftsmen in a scaled-down facility that makes full use of the advantages that its parent operation provides.

Although they’re Bob Taylor’s brainchild, R. Taylor guitars are designed in collaboration with longtime Taylor associate Larry Breedlove and more recent arrival Ed Granero. “Larry has been here as long as I have,” says Taylor. “What you see on Taylor and R. Taylor guitars is a combination of Larry Breedlove and Bob Taylor; we’re kind of like Lennon and McCartney.”

The actual building of R. Taylor guitars is done by four additional veteran Taylor employees: Tim Luranc, who also goes back to the earliest days of Taylor and who has most recently worked in Taylor’s finishing and repair departments; Keith Greenwood and Eric Larson, each with more than ten years of experience building Taylors; and Josh Carter, who has long worked in Taylor’s finishing department and who is now in charge of finishing every R. Taylor guitar completely by hand.

“What we do is almost impossible without the support of the factory,” says Bob Taylor, who muses that “it’s kind of like this dream shop where we’re cheating, in a way.” Among the advantages is access to Taylor’s specialized tools and machinery and vast amounts of premium woods, all of which few small shops could afford. (They can also rely on the occasional part, such as preslotted fretboards, or a helping hand from the Taylor operation.) R. Taylors use Taylor’s bolt-on NT neck system, but because the headstocks and necks are one piece (as opposed to a jointed headstock) and have a different heel shape, they’re not made on the Taylor production line.

Curious about what such a shop might look like, I took a trip to the Taylor and R. Taylor facilities in El Cajon, California, last June. I found the R. Taylors being built in a room the size of a two-car garage nestled within the Taylor plant—and even though I had just walked through one of the largest guitar-building facilities in North America to get to it, the R. Taylor workroom looked and felt a lot like other small, luthier-run, custom shops. “We have this ability now to make something that’s the very, very best; it’s the next level past what you can do with a factory guitar,” enthuses Taylor, who is excited at the prospect of moving R. Taylor into its own building by the end of the year.

Bob Taylor is likewise very enthusiastic about the particulars of the R. Taylor design and process: the use of solid lining (as opposed to slotted kerfing), the meticulous weighing and measuring of every piece of wood used, and a high degree of scrutiny in selecting materials. Taylor says that the solid lining results in a much stiffer guitar body, and he demonstrated this by showing me two Indian rosewood rims (assembled sides without tops or backs), one an R. Taylor, the other a Taylor Grand Symphony (with slotted kerfing). The difference in rigidity between the two was astonishing. Taylor is also tickled about being able to dip into some special stashes of wood that he has collected over the years. “I have about 60 redwood tops that I’ve had for 19 years, and I’ve never been able to use them on Taylors,” he says, referring to the fact that everything Taylor makes has to be available to every dealer in its global network. “Now we’re putting them on [some of the] R. Taylors,” which are custom made at a current rate of about seven per week.

R. Taylor guitars can be ordered in a wide variety of wood combinations, including rare Brazilian rosewood and Adirondack spruce. Bob Taylor is particularly pleased that individual attention to each guitar allows for the optimization of the wood’s sonic ideal, a result especially audible with the cocobolo backs and sides on many R. Taylors. Whereas factory-built guitars require some safety margin in the thickness of the woods, he explains, “with the R. Taylors I’m willing to go thinner and take the time required to get the weight of cocobolo right.”

In addition to wood options, R. Taylors can be ordered with custom scale lengths and neck widths, two different types of top bracing (modified X for a sound that favors the bass and lower midrange; an asymmetrical X pattern for more clarity and crispness), and either flat or radiused tops. Taylor describes the flattop models as “looser, sweeter, and more vintage sounding,” while the radiused tops have “a more modern sound, with the crispness and precision that modern guitars have.” R. Taylors can be ordered with Taylor’s Expression System electronics (a new passive version is even available if no onboard controls are desired), but the company is also open to installing any other pickup system requested by the customer.

With their combination of upscale woods and craftsmanship, customizing options, refined sound, and relative affordability (when compared with the price of other small-scale custom makers’ instruments), R. Taylor guitars are bound to make acoustic flattop connoisseurs—especially those who can check the guitars out by way of a small dealer network—take notice.

Reflecting on 30-plus years of building guitars, Bob Taylor is delighted to continue along his avowed path of making ever-better instruments. “R. Taylor is a fun thing,” he says, fully aware that the larger factory bearing his name is there to buffer any financial risks involved. “In a way, it’s returning to our roots, but it’s returning in such a way that we don’t have to do the hard part.”

R. Taylor Guitars
1980 Gillespie Way
El Cajon, CA 92020
(619) 258-4032
www.rtaylorguitars.com

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This article also appears in Acoustic Guitar, November 2006

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