Guitar World magazine recently posted a video of their exclusive tour of the Paul Reed Smith factory. I found it interesting that, although machines are used to do the cutting of the body and neck, there is still a lot of manual labor involved in assembling a PRS guitar.
Interesting video. I always appreciate a guitar that has some manual labor and custom work. There’s often a lot more than meets the eye to a quality, good sounding guitar.
I have been fascinated with factory tours after I went to the Taylor Guitars factory tour in San Diego. I think we’re still far away from 100 percent machine manufactured guitars. Nothing beats the attention to detail only a human hand can do.
Really cool, but not exclusive, I saw a PRS tour from Premier Guitar last summer. They had a few videos.
Hey Ryan, a Taylor factory tour would be fun! I agree that we’re a long way from machines being able to replicate the detail that a human can bring to guitar-making.
Elizabeth, I agree!
Wow, I never knew how much sanding went into one guitar, and I am kind of surprised that it isn’t automated.
Great vid… Always nice to know how they work!!
FYI, there are companies working on injection molding wood bodies to reduce the human component required and to equalize the differences in guitars within the same model. Basically, they take spruce, mash it up into goo and injection mold it at extremely high pressure. An example of a company I ran into at NAMM and got to talk with for about an hour is
http://www.flaxwood.com/home/
I will be doing a review of their guitars shortly…
If you like checking out behind-the-scenes stuff at guitar factories, check out the Fretboard Journal.
http://www.fretboardjournal.com/
Sort of like National Geographic for guitarists. In addition to interviewing musicians about gear and recordings, they seem to go behind-the-scenes at different guitar companies at least a few times in every issue.
Cool video.