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A koa T5-C2 shows off its gloss finish in the Taylor UV oven
UV Oven

The Taylor Finish department has helped spur several major innovations that have dramatically improved the process of spraying, curing and polishing a guitar’s finish to better protect it over its life.

In the mid-’90s, Taylor moved away from using traditional lacquer finish and developed a polyester finish formula that offered many benefits: It was more durable and less susceptible to “cold-checking,” the spiderweb-like microfissures that result from exposure to dramatic temperature swings; a thinner coverage could be applied, which allowed the wood to resonate more freely; it was clearer than lacquer and wouldn’t yellow over time like lacquer would; and it was easier to work with when doing spot repairs. It also was more environmentally friendly, which earned Taylor several official commendations and helped raise the environmental standards for the guitar industry as a whole.

To shorten the curing time — which had been upwards of 10 days with lacquer — Taylor’s tooling team built its own ultraviolet ovens to cure the new finish, which drastically reduced the curing process to about 60 seconds.

Another innovation — a combined robotic/electrostatic spray system — dramatically reduced the material waste of the finish-spraying process and made it easier to achieve a beautifully even, glassy coverage on a guitar body. While the spray guns Taylor had previously used were supposed to provide good manual transfer efficiency, in reality, 80 percent of the finish was ending up on the walls, on the floors, and in filters designed to catch overspray. The new system incorporates a robotic arm and an electrostatic spray cell (also used in the auto industry). Now the ratios are reversed: More than 80 percent of the finish is transferred to the guitar.

One of the keys to the process is to electrically “ground” the guitar part by applying a saline solvent solution of an electrically conductive coating that can be used on wood. (We use a two-percent mix with isopropyl — rubbing alcohol — which is only a vehicle to carry the coating; the alcohol quickly evaporates and leaves the thin coating, which creates ground.)

From there, a vinyl-cloaked robotic arm hoists the guitar body from a loading station and extends the body on a series of trajectories beneath a fixed-position rotary atomizer. The atomizer sprays a super-fine mist of electrostatically charged finish that drifts down and envelops the guitar part, adhering to it in a manner impossible to achieve with traditional hand-spraying. Sophisticated controls regulate the “shaping” of air, turbine speed, and electrical charge, in order to achieve the desired evenness of coverage.