The Tall Traveling Taylor
by Paul Chase

This is the story of the "Tall Traveling Taylor" guitar that I designed, constructed and painted. It all began when someone at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville casually mentioned that they would love a big guitar sculpture to display. I pondered the possibilities for several months, and every time I stayed at the Millennium I would visualize the guitar. I took pictures of its eventual display site. I talked it over with my friend Wayne, a master woodworker. Many considerations came into play regarding size, materials, weight, water resistance, the stand, mobility, etc.

A few more months passed. The project was always in the back of my mind, and I kept toying with the final "look" of it. In another visit with Wayne he said, "Build it light and cover it with fiberglass." That clicked. I have several guitars...don't we all? I have two with a Florentine cutaway. They are my favorites in terms of body design and aesthetic appeal. I am, after all, an artist first and a guitarist second. Ouch! Did I really say that?

As I live 600 miles north of Nashville, Tennessee, the Tall Taylor's home to be, I knew in advance that I would have to transport it to various places. I had a 6x10 enclosed trailer. I could make the bigger than life guitar with a removable neck, just like real Taylor guitars. Eventually I knew it had to be totally assembled and roadworthy for lots of "Show and Tell" guitar shows and festivals. Plus, just driving it around Nashville and other places and watching the slack-jawed expressions of those who saw it would be a blast.

I decided to use my Taylor Doyle Dykes Signature Model for the specs. I wanted it as big as I could get from an 8' sheet of quarter-inch mahogany paneling. I planned to book-match two sheets for the front and two for the back, jig-sawed to proportional specifications. I would use 1 x 2s to brace the sides and some 2 x 4s to brace the top and back, without much hand-carving on the bracing. I knew that bending the sides would be a challenge, so for the extreme bends of the cutaway I used 1/8" Masonite.

I worked in a single car garage, which was tight for operation. I had to rotate the guitar with ropes etc. to work on each side. When positioned on its side, I placed it on a dolly cart so two people could wheel it in and out of the garage. With such a large object, I did not use a micrometer, so some "artistic license" was at play throughout the process of creating the final piece of art. I also needed to beef-up interior "stand supports" for the guitar stand. We guitarists know the danger of a guitar falling off its stand, especially a 300- lb. 16-foot guitar!

The neck/fretboard is half-inch plywood and the head is a composite of a front and back consisting of half-inch plywood and Styrofoam filler to get the correct proportions. The frets are slices of pine "fudged" just for looks even though placed at the approximate "correct" locations. The back of the neck is sculpted with plywood braces and wire fence shaped like the sweet curve of an easy action guitar neck. Now, don't get out your measuring sticks, and remember the artistic license aspect.

I carefully hand cut and jig-sawed, the broomstick posts of the tuners and spent way too much time on the details of the nuts and washers that disappeared under the strings and several layers of fiberglass. The tuning knobs are carved from Styrofoam and the machines are constructed from PVC pluming pipe...Don't tell anyone! The saddle is carved from Styrofoam and the pins were ping-pong balls at first...oops! Too big...I had to saw them off. I found a more suitable size oak ball at the hobby store.

Ok, now just cover it with fiberglass! Yeah, "just"! That was a labor of love, resulting in little fiberglass itchy things all over the house for a month. I wore a vapor-proof mask while I listened to guitar music and the sound of sanding, grinding and sawing. I'd work a little and then go for a ride on the Harley to get some air. I invested a few hours a day for two months, sometime less, sometime more- or applied a coat of fiberglass or paint and let it dry for a day while doing something else.

Once the object was completely covered with fiberglass sheeting and resin, I decided to really give it a "sculpted" quality and applied a heavy texture of Bondo [makers of adhesive kits, body fillers and putties, and fiberglass repair products] - 6-7 gallons of it!

Finally, the Tall not-yet-Traveling Taylor was ready for several coats of black enamel paint followed by a collage made up of hundreds of my subtle fine-art graphic guitar paintings designed to give an "up-close" appeal to the finished sculpture. Both the back and front are covered with prints. I then sprayed a sunburst effect and added the sculpted grain pattern. The sides are painted with "tone shift" paint that changes color from red to blue, depending on the viewer's position. And I used a stencil to spray music notes happily dancing over the red/blue to create the feeling of motion!

The soundhole is surrounded by a circle of white enamel impregnated with glass beads to "blast" under lights at night. I also added a 1-inch white glass bead stripe around the edge of the front of the guitar as faux purfling. The strings are steel rods 12 feet long. Low E and A are ¼" steel rods, D and G are 3/16", and B and E are the "light gauge" strings at 1/8" of steel.

The headstock is painted after one of my originals - The "USAguitar" which is now on display in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee and also graces the cover of a Mel Bay book called American Treasures. The stars on the headstock of the Tall Taylor are white enamel with glowing glass beads. The position markers on the fretboard are a waving sheet of music notes, also in white enamel and glass beads. The entire sculpture is covered with three coats of exterior UV-inhibiting clear coat. Hopefully, the piece will resist the elements for years to come.

I should add that the guitar stand alone is about nine feet tall. It is designed to pivot as it would be difficult to transport a guitar that, with trailer, stood 20' tall. My son and I carefully inched it into place on the flatbed trailer and then lugged it into place on the guitar stand. Part of the stand was attached prior to moving it out to the trailer.

Unfortunately, the Tall Taylor does not hold pitch as well as I would like, but it looks great! It is a blast to drive around with it. On the interstate, people typically drive by and then suddenly slow down and get out their cameras...yeah!

The maiden voyage was to the Railway Café in Galena, Illinois- about 15 miles from my studio. The local news somehow got wind of it and took pictures for a news article. The guitar "took" to the constant motion of traveling aided with strategically placed tie-down straps and bungie chords. I then took the Tall Traveling Taylor to Franklin Tennessee to the Artisan Guitar Store for show and tell. It was also on exhibit at the Leipers Creek Gallery's "Wood, Steel and Stone" sculpture show in Leipers Fork, a small but well-known tourist town in central Tennessee, where many country western musicians live. The Tall Traveling Taylor will remain on its trailer/stand at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel until it finds a permanent home. As of this writing the one-of-a-kind sculpture is available for purchase. Start to finish, the concept took about nine months to complete and the finished piece was placed in its temporary location Oct 1, 2006.

It's been fun!
Paul

---

For more exciting pictures of the Tall Traveling Taylor and other guitar-related projects check Paul's website at www.graphicguitars.com and http://www.graphicguitars.com/about.htm#