Official Luthiers Forum!

Found this intersting on You Tube - Taylor Guitar and use of robots for polishinghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=585pi6eE5A0

I think the machine's name is Buffy (The Guitar Slayer), after it tossed a couple at the start. Something special happens with a 48" buffing wheel grabs a guitar

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

I kinda liked how Bob said that guitars are basically handmade at the beginning, then they showed how everything was done by cnc and robots except the final neck attachment and setup. Kind of ironic, eh?

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

That's pretty cool. If he keeps going with it he should be able to run the
whole plant from his office.

I saw one of these in person at the Martin factory and the buffing wheel is gigantic...It is almoast frightening how like mechanical the whole buffing system is though!

[QUOTE=Don Williams] I kinda liked how Bob said that guitars are basically handmade at the beginning, then they showed how everything was done by cnc and robots except the final neck attachment and setup. Kind of ironic, eh?[/QUOTE]

In fairness to Bob, you get a much different perspective from the inside of the factory. Taylor has automated most of the machine work that goes into a guitar, but they haven't replaced much of the hand work except for neck carving and finishing. If you're using CNCed necks/headplates/bridges and sending guitars to Tony, like many of the guys here, then you're closer than you think.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

I think more than neck carving and finishing has been replaced. At Martin they cut pretty much every part of the guitar on CNC or via laser. There is some traditional handwork done for binding & neck fitting but I think this is all made much easier by the fact that all of the parts are cut exactly as they should be.

CNC'd necks/headplates/bridges, etc.. is the first step...the big boys can afford to CNC the rest as well (braces, soundholes, inlay, end blocks, etc).

At the end of the day though, there are still some things that require a person's eye to do finish work. The buffing robots at Martin supposedly do about 90 or 95% of the work...but final finish almost always has to be done by hand. I think this mentality would also apply for any time you fit, sand, or finish.

There are also sanding robots out there that operate on similar principles....force feedback on the arm is the thing that enables this type of technology. This is especially true for buffing due to wheel wear.

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