A tailored guitar, dressed and setup to perfection...

 

Akin to the crests an furrows of a players fingerprint, each guitar that leaves our hands to yours has a unique story to tell.

At Carr, we take a a completely individualised approach to the fret work and set up of each guitar, such that we endeavour to tailor each instrument we create to its respective owner, a true reflection of their musical nuances.

 

 

Our Fret Dress Technique

 

Here we use a specialised jig that allows us to fully optimise the playability of the guitar. Using the Jig we can rotate the entire guitar into playing position, whilst the strings are still on.

Once in playing position, we can measure the tension on the neck with the gauges and, once the strings are removed, return the neck to the correct tension for us to begin our fret work. This point also reveals twists, humps, hollows and other fretting problems generated by these tensions that can be corrected if neccessary.

 

Leveling is carried out using full length leveling beams that we had made to 2.5 micron accuracy over their full length. A guitar neck will move that much if you blow on it! Better to be more accurate than necessary.

 

To ensure easy and choke-free string bending a very slight back bow is applied above fret 12. Microscopic in size, about 0.025mm (0.001"), this back bow allows 4 and 5 semitone bends on most guitars although the fingerboard curvature makes a major difference to this of course.

 

We next re-profile the fret crowns using diamond crowning tools and dress the ends of the frets to avoid any contact with the palms of the hand.

Finally we undertake a six stage polishing procedure that even involves the use of jeweller's rouge to bring the frets to absolute perfection.

 

 

 

A Tailored Setup

 

Our master setup can be personally tailored to your specific playing style and needs if required. Although the 7 basic steps below outline our process we will endeavour to ensure that you are absolutely happy with every aspect of your setup, from 12th fret action to pickup height. Our setup also takes place on our specialised playing position jig.

 

Our setup includes but is not limited to:

 

Clean and lubricate control pots, switches and jack socket

Check and adjust/lubricate Machine Heads

Set pickup height

Clean & degrease finger board or oil as required

Re-string guitar with agreed strings

Adjust truss rod tension

Set action at bridge (12th fret height)

Re-cut nut to optimise action - lubricate.

Adjust action to discussed preferences

Lubricate tremolo and adjust settings (where neccessary)

Adjust and optimise intonation