Does size matter?
We sometimes receive an upset call or email from a nice customer that ordered say an .840 profile on their neck and it arrives and they whip out their trusty set of calipers and lo and behold its an .856. “It’s an outrage…it’s a scandal! I can’t believe it…this is going to ruin everything…do they not have calipers there?… What the $#@&!”
We operate, in most circumstances, within an acceptable tolerance of 20 thousandths. That looks like this – .020. As you have probably noticed from the pic above it’s not much…actually it’s just a bit larger than the G string on a set of guitar strings. We did some random testing a few years back and our crew could start feeling a difference in a neck at around .030 -.040…30 to 40 thousandths. And understand that these are guys that touch thousands of necks each year.
Could we get it closer? Probably….that would mean that we would need to have machines finish everything and we don’t really believe in that. We do all of our major cuts on CNC’s to assure we are starting from the same place, but we still finish EVERYTHING by hand, and we think that’s part of our secret sauce. That basically means if “Schmendrick” was late because of car problems and his girlfriend yelled at him A LOT last night your .840 may come out at .820 lol. Or if they had a great dinner and a nice IPA and the car started just fine you may get an .856!
I guess the point is that our tolerances are pretty tight…but if you are waiting for the UPS guy with a set of calipers chances are you are going to be disappointed….but once you get it completed and playing you will be thrilled….we stake our reputation on it.