Why would Bob Taylor, who has spent over 30 years making Taylor Guitars an industry leader for innovative design and quality craftsmanship, want to start all over again as individual builder?

Bob explains... "There is something so gripping about painstakingly making a guitar - a single guitar - and putting attention into every detail, sandpaper and chisel in hand. A luthier never tires of this. With the resources of Taylor Guitars at my fingertips, I decided to start a new company that makes guitars in this fashion. One by one, with no detail too small."

For the new R. Taylor shop, Bob assembled a select, "dream team" of luthiers who all have at least 10 years of experience designing and building Taylors. Production will be very limited, with numerous options available, making every guitar virtually a custom instrument.

Bob says, "I’d like to mention the craftsmen working hand-in-glove with me on this. First, there is Larry Breedlove, my nearly life-long partner in design, and our young colleague Ed Granero. The three of us make up the design wellspring. When I arrived at The American Dream guitar shop in 1973 as an 18-year-old guitar builder, I worked beside a bench already occupied by Timothy Luranc. Tim still works with me today! He has now transferred to the R. Taylor shop.

Tim does all the final assembly of the guitars along with any customer repair work, and even though he finished guitars for years on end, he gets a break from that pursuit now. The gorgeous finish on the guitars is proudly applied by Josh Carter. Josh has been finishing at Taylor for ten years, and having finished literally thousands of guitars, he’s at the top of his game. Bodies and necks are made by Keith Greenwood and Eric Larson, each 10-yearveterans who were chosen out of a selection of 300 craftspeople.  

The basic R. Taylor model is a new design, designated simply as the R. Taylor Style One, that responds well to both fingerstylists and flatpickers. Options (many of them at no extra charge) include bracing patterns, body woods, top geometry (flat or radius), scale length, neck wood, headstock overlay, nut width and neck shape. The latest R. Taylor guitars have a new neck/headstock joint with a smooth splice (replacing the earlier furniture-style "finger" joint).

Please call or email for information on the R. Taylor guitars we currently have in stock.

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