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"Buffy" the robot with a gloss-finish koa guitar
Buffing

Buffing a Taylor guitar demands a devotion to impeccable cosmetic details, yet maintaining consistency is difficult with hand-buffing due to the different body mechanics used from person to person, and from guitar to guitar. With consistency as the goal, Taylor invested in a robotic system (later christened “Buffy”) and developed a sophisticated robotic buffing process. A complex phase of custom-programming and integration had to take into account a multitude of variables, including different body geometries for each guitar shape. But the effort was well worth it: Buffing was transformed into a precise, high-tech process that greatly refined our ability to consistently protect a guitar and enhance its aesthetic appeal. We started incorporating robotic buffing into production in 2001.

Buffy has a six-axis, articulated arm that yields a substantial range of motion, allowing it to be programmed in curves and circles to handle the roundabout contours of a guitar body. The buffing sequence is performed on four separate buffing wheels, each made of different fabrics and accompanied by different types of polish.

After a guitar body is loaded into a cell, a camera identifies the guitar shape and loads the correct buffing program. Buffy picks up the body using four Pneumatic suction cups on the end of her arm, proceeds through an extended buffing sequence, and eventually returns the body to another cell. A few final manual steps follow at the polish and clean wheel, then inspection and waxing. Technically, the entire process takes about the same time it would take manually, but it’s more consistent and beautifully showcases the details of the tonewoods used. And once Buffy is “trained,” she never has to be re-trained.
Sets of wood being stickered
Seasoning Wood

Seasoning guitar wood is a critical preface to the guitar building process. The underlying goal is to maximize the stability and resiliency of the wood to give it the best chance for a healthy life as a guitar, as it may be exposed to different environments with varying levels of relative humidity (RH). RH extremes are perhaps the greatest nemesis a guitar will face, and Taylor’s wood seasoning efforts are more extensive than those of any other guitar company.

One of the first steps our milling department will take after receiving wood is to gauge the moisture content with a handheld, digital moisture meter, and this will be monitored frequently throughout the seasoning process.

Tops, backs and sides are “stickered,” or stacked with plastic sticks between them, to allow air to circulate evenly across the surface to facilitate uniform drying. With most woods, when the moisture content reaches about 12-15 percent, it will be moved into the kilns to continue the drying process.

A uniquely Taylor technique that’s designed to maximize the longterm stability of the wood is to bring it down to 0 percent moisture content. In this state, the wood shrinks to the smallest it can ever be. Next, it’s moved it into a climate-controlled room — maintained at 47 percent RH — where the wood, depending on its species, will rehydrate to a moisture level of about 6 percent. Bringing that moisture level all the way down better prepares the wood for the dry conditions a guitar will likely face later on, say in a music store that doesn’t have a climate-controlled acoustic room. Depending on the use of heaters or air conditioning, the relative humidity can drop to below 20 percent.

The 47 percent RH is an optimized humidity level that can best accommodate the range of humidity levels in different parts of the country. But as Bob Taylor explains, completely drying wood first and then bringing it into a 47 percent RH environment is even better.

“If we took wet wood and simply brought it down to 47 percent, you’d have a larger piece of wood than if we dried it all the way down and brought it back up,” Bob says. “We want wood that’s predestined to be able to hold up to the dryness that happens in stores. In a dry store, wood will still shrink slightly. Our drying process gives us an edge; it’s much, much better.”
NT Neck® pocket spacers
The NT Neck®

Taylor has long had a reputation for having the most playable necks and best intonation in the acoustic industry. From the very beginning, Bob Taylor’s necks, with their slim profile and low action, attracted players. His innovative bolt-on approach early on brought easier adjustability. The patented NT Neck, first introduced in 1999, brought arguably the most important structural improvement to the acoustic guitar in the 20th Century.

The ability to maintain a straight, stable neck has long been a fundamental challenge for guitar makers, partly because of an inherent design flaw: The fretboard lacked sufficient support to remain truly straight because of top movement caused by changes in humidity. All guitars experience this phenomenon —often resulting in a slight bump at the 14th fret — which usually causes intonation problems.

With the NT Neck design, a continuous piece of wood supports the fretboard all the way up to the 19th fret. Traditional necks lose that support at the 14th fret, relying instead on a “floating,” unsupported fingerboard extension that’s glued directly to the constantly-moving soundboard. As a result, other necks may bend, literally hinging at the 14th fret. But the NT neck remains perfectly straight and stable.

The NT Neck also allows the neck angle to be set with dead-on precision on every guitar. A computer-milled pocket is precision-routed to accommodate the neck. The pocket is then inset with a pair of laser-cut, tapered spacers (shims) that allow the neck angle to be set to an accuracy of .001of an inch. As a result, every Taylor neck is straight and the intonation is true, which means there are never any “dead spots” on the fretboard.

Micro-adjustability is another major NT advantage. Since the NT Neck angle is created by spacers and requires no glue, a neck reset simply requires a repairperson with a new set of spacers and about five spare minutes. Altering the neck angle of a traditional neck assembly could require invasive surgery to remove wood and relocate the bridge.

The bottom line is that the NT Neck gives players a stable, easy-to-adjust neck that will stand up well to the real-world pressures all acoustic guitars face.