Taylor Big Baby

The success of Taylor’s smallest and by far its least expensive model, the three-quarter size Baby, introduced back in 1996, may have taken the company by surprise, but, unsurprisingly, Taylor responded with the introduction of another similar, but fuller-figured model.

Sticking generally to the same structural and visual template, a full 25.5 inch scale length now replaces the Baby’s 22.75 inch scale. An increase in demensions has created a 15/16ths size dreadnought body, although it is, proportionally, slightly shallower than a regular dreadnought.

New Neck

One of the original Baby’s rare features was its neck joint. Its development helped pave the way for Taylor’s ‘new technology’ necks. The Big Baby’s neck is nearly identical except for some internal modifications to the neck block.

A little bit like an electric bolt-on design except the cross-head screws are sunk in through the fingerboard – that virtually heel-less neck is mounted into a precisely machined socket, routed out of the soundboard and the underlying section of the extended L-shape neck-block. that might sound like a flimsy platform for an acoustic neck, but it’s really an extremely rigid structure.

Apart from the advantages of being quickly and easily removable/re-settable, that additionally results in the mahogany neck extending all the way to the end of the ebony fingerboard, with no part of the latter joined to the soundboard. It is that basic principle – avoiding the distortion of the fingerboard due to soundboard movement – that is behind the NT neck, although that is a considerably more complex, intricately machined design.

The remaining construction details couldn’t be simpler. Although the top gets a regular X-shape spread of scalloped braces, the Big Baby body doesn’t used kerfed linings (apart from a couple of two-inch sections at either of the upper bout’s main brace) and there’s

no bracing on the back.

Instead, the back is given a pronounced arch, for rigidity and improved projection, that looks similar to that of an f-hole jazz guitar, but is pressed rather than carved into that shape. It isn’t possible to mould solid wood in that way, showing that Taylor has made creative use of these laminate panels with that design.

With no linings, the internal join within back and sides is, understandably, a little more gluey than we’re used to with Taylor. With no purfling, binding or scratchplate, the soundboard is a Spartan affair, but the laser-etched rosette is a subtle yet phenomenally precise work of hi-tech art.

The two-piece neck features the new NT-style finger-jointed headstock, offering a neat, structurally dependable and resource saving alternative to the one-piece concept. Aside from the arguably unsightly crew heads (there for the sake of honesty, apparently) the fingerboard and frets are quite immaculate.

The headstock is veneered with Lexan (a trade name for a polycarbonate material) and houses a mechanically solid sextet of tuners. Though normally purveyors of Tusq nuts and saddles, Taylor has opted for a non-brand substitute here.

The choice is a commonly used, hard, durable phenolic plastic (Micarta is a well-known trade name for phenlic). As you’d expect, they are respectively seated and slotted with extreme accuracy, although they could both do with some smoothing of their sharp corners. It’s reassuring to see that the solid ebony bridge is as finely buffed and bevel-edged as you’d expect on any Taylor.

There’s a grainy, occasionally rough but natural look to that thin mat-satin finish, which adds to the puritanical, sparse look of the Big Baby, but there’s nothing half-baked about the way that guitar has been assembled.

(2 pages; go to page: 2)

[Source] Matthew Wig