ahhhh...scratched my 816 !!!!

[Edward]

Edward, do you still have that GA7 cedar top?  I would love to hear one of those!

I wish I did!  It was my #1 live guit, and it served me wonderfully well!  I loved the rich midrange and its vocal "presence" as opposed to, say, a GA and GS spruce/rw I had; that scooped mids thing is not me.  By contrast, this GA7 sounded fully and meaty, all the while maintaining the Taylor "sparkle."  Oh, and I'm a 95% strummer/hybrid picker; precious little finger picking and no problem whatsoever with cedar doing the deal!

I sold it (and two other guits!) only because I ran into another guit I just had to have.  No regrets, but I do miss that guit, and still maintain that Taylor does amazing things with cedar.

Edward

[guitarsrsoawesome]

... still maintain that Taylor does amazing things with cedar.

Edward

I have to agree with that because for me, my 514ce hog/cedar is one of the best Taylors I've heard, and I know it's the cedar that gets the credit.  Like you said, warmth across the board, but still the sparkle.  Hard not to love

[Guitar Cowboy]

Well , I exchanged emails with Pat DiBurro and he indicated that he would be able to repair the guitar. Since it has already had a repair attempt, he said he may not be able to do a localized repair, so we are talking about a full strip and refinish of the top. The estimate was about twice what I had in my head ( not that what I had in my head means anything) and then of course there is two way shipping  and I  have no idea what that would cost.

Thank you  for pointing me to Mr. DiBurro  and for the other comments as well. I am definitely going to think about getting it done. I'm pretty sure its a  forever guitar.  I will forget about the cost in a few months and it sure will be nice not to think about the scratch every time I go to play.

 Thanks everybody !

[Strumming Fool]

Hang in there...

My beloved 1997 cedar top sustained similar scratches to your guitar's, and it's now on its way back to me from El Cajon. Some people have called cedar a more fragile wood, because it is a bit softer than spruce, but I have every confidence that Taylor was up to the job, especially after I had experienced firsthand the miraculous finish repair work they had done on some of my other babies... by the way, this cedar top is still one of my favorite Taylors!