Old Lutherie tales - Guild custom shop vs. Taylor

[twocorgis]

Wow Chistopher, that Greven is simply outstanding! I've always loved the concept of the Nick Lucas style, and 00 with a 13 fret join and a deep body. I's one that I'd like to add to the herd at some point, but my herd is already too big right now! As for man vs machine made guitars, the thing that impressed me most about both the Guild and Collings factories is that they seemed to nail the CNC/craftsman matrix perfectly.

 

[idealassets]

Chris, I don't believe in this theory. The variable in guitar building is WOOD.... for the most part. And I think you're equating "hand built" with "better". With the variables of wood, add in the variables of "hand made" and I think it's a LOT of variables. And what it makes is some great guitars, some okay guitars, and a few not so good guitars. I think Taylor is skillfully crafted, and meticulously built and engineered, and they make some great guitars, some okay guitars, and a few guitars that are not so good. The Guild custom shop made.... how many guitars? Do you know? Taylor makes a gazillion. You don't have to like Taylor guitars, but you gotta give them credit for building a LOT of popular and good sounding guitars. They don't have to be your taste, but that's okay. There's a snobbery here that I kinda want to address.

I don't equate hand-built with "SOUL". Soul is what you have at the end of the job.... and you don't know if you've got it until you get there.

You build some really EFFIN AMAZING guitars. Has every one sounded like you thought, or as you predicted?

Just wondering..... :encouragement:

I agree here. If Cordoba bought all the Guild equipment, I presume that the sale included all the laser production equipment at New Hartford. "Hand Built" in this case only means hand assembled and glued. But all the wood was cut and machined by laser controlled equipment. I am willing to get over the idea that "hand built" means better, since I personally like most any new guitar much better than the older ones. This is after playing lots of guitars that are sitting for sale in store racks.

Another aspect is that I just love to add the tone myself to any new guitar wood, and I don't mind the "untoned" aspect at all of a new guitar.

Craig

 

[idealassets]

Chris,
Your Greven guitar is a beauty. Can you divulge how you managed to obtain yours, since I have never seen one?

Craig

 

[Christopher Cozad]

...Greven guitar ... I have never seen one?

Not surprising, Craig.

John builds close to 50 guitars a year (a phenomenal achievement in itself) but most, if not all, are spoken for. Occasionally (rarely) one will turn up for sale at the usual Internet sites.

 

[twocorgis]

Not surprising, Craig.

John builds close to 50 guitars a year (a phenomenal achievement in itself) but most, if not all, are spoken for. Occasionally (rarely) one will turn up for sale at the usual Internet sites.

There's one for sale over at AGF right now. Bet it's nice!

 

[Roger Smith]

I have had the opportunity to run a CNC machine at the shipyard where I work. They are fascinating ! When I first got this old '66 Chevelle it did'nt look like much. I put alot of my 'soul' into it. Now it looks and runs GREAT ! I kinda think of my guitars in a simliar light; the time I put into them comes out in that magical combination of soul,passion and heart,regardless of being built by a machine or by hands of man. Choice of materials ie. wood,strings,etc. certainly play a huge part as well.

Psalm 104:33
" I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being."

 

[adorshki]

I put it up, and grabbed the one right next to it. It was shockingly different. Nowhere NEAR the full, rich sound from the other one. How does one account for that? Human error? Differences in different pieces of wood? How do you account for that?

It just wasn't that into you.

 

[Neal]

Personally, Tom, I think variation found from guitar to guitar (sometimes quite profound) is mostly in the wood, especially after a model has been made for a while and everybody knows what they are doing.

Steinway has been making the same model of grand pianos in the same Brooklyn factory, using the same molds, for more than a century. Each is different. The world's best pianists visit the factory and play dozens that have been "typed" according to their taste. Even after 100 "identical" pianos have been separated into different "types", there are still considerable differences in their voices.

Got to be the wood.

Neal

 

[Christopher Cozad]

...Got to be the wood...

I remember a time as a teenager, pre-CNC, when I was pressing a machinist to assist me in engineering greater accuracy for my woodworking tools. I was contrasting the fine control of a vertical milling machine with my "bump and scoot" table saw fence, and I was convinced I could revolutionize woodworking if I could replicate that same level of control. (Today that accuracy is readily available. I use it all over my shop). But this machinist's comment has resonated with me for decades, "You're not working with aluminum here, it's wood!".

Of course, his point was wood can alter dimensions while you watch it. Wood can be dramatically subject to changes in humidity. If it takes on moisture it swells perpendicular to the grain direction. As the moisture is removed, the wood contracts. These changes are measured in 1/64, 1/32, even 1/8 inch increments.

Metal knows no such changes. The closest you are going to get to a "wood to metal dimensional change comparison" is if you are measuring massive corrosion layers on the surface of the metal, and that will be in the 10's to 100's of thousandths of inches, not 1/8".

There was no arguing his premise, as decades of woodworking have since confirmed. For all the effort that can go into ensuring ultra-precision accuracy in woodworking, wood "moves", baby! My simple understanding at the time was (and it persists to this day) if wood can demonstrate such dimensional fluctuation when contrasted with metal, and wood is the primary tone generator of an acoustic instrument, then tone (or quality of tone) will also fluctuate from (to a lesser degree) environmental condition to environmental condition, and from (to a greater degree) wood to wood.

This helps us understand why guitars built entirely by machine, in processes devoid of so called human error, can sound markedly different. If a batch of instruments are built entirely by machine using woods that are all from the same tree, or woods that are otherwise negligibly distinct, then those instruments may very well sound nearly identical. But when they differ, and boy can they differ...

Yes, it has "got to be the wood".

 

[Christopher Cozad]

I have been following an Elixir / Taylor collaboration for a while, now. I saw this advertisement this morning that summarizes the effort and found it interesting in the light of this thread. Rather than coax "...bolder highs and fuller lows..." out of the guitar itself (potentially requiring a massive change to the construction process, including wood selection, tooling and master luthier involvement), just alter the engineering of the strings. If this approach proves successful, it could be a solution for countless other brands as well that beg for greater dynamic range from their guitars.

NEW Elixir HD Light Strings were developed with Taylor Guitars to bring bolder highs and fuller lows to the Grand Concert and Grand Auditorium by creating a unique tension profile across the soundboard. The increased tension of the treble strings improves their articulation. The interaction of the tension profile with the soundboard also adds harmonic content to the bass strings. This is accomplished by blending the medium gauge plain steel strings with light gauge wound strings, bridged by a custom .025 third string.

• Available in Phosphor Bronze and 80/20 Bronze
• Bolder, stronger high end
• Fuller, warmer low end
• Balanced voice across all strings
• Ideal for any narrow bodied guitar
• Comfortable, balanced hand feel
• .013, .017, .025, .032, .042, .053

 

[adorshki]

...bridged by a custom .025 third string.

Just like Guild put in the L350 lights lo those many years ago.
I'm always on about those .025 G's.
:excitement:

 

[southernGuild]

Great thread, Great info. I'm learning and pondering a lot.
Thanks Christopher for some great woodworking-wood-musical instrument insight.