Carvin Bolt SSS Tremolo - Custom Shop Strat Killer - Made in USA - Two Color Sunburst - Free Pro Setup

Custom Shop Carvin Bolt (Kiesel Delos) SSS Strat Style Guitar
Weighs 7.7 lbs.

Free Pro Setup - $100 value.
See below for details.

Available Cases:

• Gig bag, $49
• Aftermarket hard case, $129
• Carvin molded hard shell case, $179 (shown)
• Carvin premium hard shell case, black. Made in USA by G&G, $219
• Carvin premium hard shell case, tweed. Made in USA by G&G, $239
• This guitar will ship without a case or bag, unless you add one to your order

Made in USA Custom Shop Quality: Carvin is the old name for Kiesel Guitars. Founded in the 1940's, they are a contemporary of Fender, and they've been making high-quality Made in USA guitars for almost 80 years. Kiesel is still located in Escondido, San Diego County. Our shop is about 1.5 hours from the Fender Corona factory and about 20 minutes from the Kiesel and old Carvin factories. We've been to them many times, and have been working on Fenders and Carvins for years. We love Carvins for their excellent build quality and top quality woods, electronics and hardware. We buy them whenever we can and love to turn on our customers on to them.

This is a $2000 guitar: Carvin introduced the Bolt in 1997. The Bolt used the same high-quality materials and were made in the same factory by the same skilled craftsmen who made Carvin's top-of-the-line models.  Standard features included an alder body, a bolt-on, 25.5" scale, 22-fret, maple neck, six-on-a-side headstock with Sperzel locking tuners, maple or ebony fingerboard and a white multi-layer pickguard.  Electronics consisted of three single coil pickups with master volume and tone controls, a 5-way switch and a mini-toggle (Gilmour mod) to turn on the bridge pickup and provide a total of seven pickup configurations. You can order a guitar like this from Kiesel. It's called the Delos. With similar specs as this one, it would cost around $2000. Which is actually very reasonable for a made to order USA built guitar.

Strat Killer: If you love Strats (and who doesn't) you might give the Bolt a try. It's basically a Made in USA Custom Shop Strat with a lot of upgrades. If you were to order a guitar like this from Fender, you'd be looking at $4000 to $5000, if they would build it for you.

• Familiar Strat shape with slightly larger cutaways for easier reach of the higher frets
• Made in USA to the highest quality standards
• Made to order in small numbers in a custom shop style facility
• Tilt back headstock (7-deg), so no string tree is required - better tuning stability
• D shaped neck profile, which a lot of people love
• Ebony fingerboard - regarded by many as the best material for a fingerboard
• Sperzel locking tuners for better tuning stability and easy string changes
• Professional quality hardware for years of trouble free performance
• Flat 14" fingerboard radius - allows lower action without fretting out on bends
• Most have special pickup and switching options for more tonal possibilities
• Individually tailored to the owner's preferences - so each one is a little different

Fretboard: This guitar has an ebony fretboard with a 14" radius. The flat radius allows you to set your action lower without fretting out on string bends.

Pickups: This guitar arrived in our shop with aftermarket pickups that we felt were not on par with it's quality. So we installed a set from a 1990's Fender Strat, that we knew sounded great. They are clear and articulate at low volumes and can get crunchy when driven harder. It sounds like a Strat should!

Wiring: We wired it up like it would have come from the Carvin factory with a five-way switch, master volume, master tone, and mini-toggle, using top quality components - CTS pots and a Fender all metal switch.

Gilmour Mod: This guitar, like most Carvin Bolts, includes a mini-toggle to turn on the neck pickup (Gilmour mod). This switch works independent of the pickup selector, so it gives you two more very usable pickup possibilities. Once you play a Strat with this mod, you may wonder why it's not stock on every Strat style guitar.

Pickup combinations (standard): 

• 1. Neck
• 2. Neck and middle
• 3. Middle
• 4. Middle and bridge
• 5. Bridge

Gilmour switch Mod) on:

• 6. Neck and bridge (Tele Position 2)
• 7. Neck, middle and bridge

Luthier's Assessment and Measurements:

• Weight: 7.9 lbs
• Nut width: 1.68"
• Neck width at 12th fret: 2.06”
• Neck thickness 1st fret: 0.82”
• Neck thickness 12th fret: 0.90”
• Scale: 25.5"
• Fretboard radius: Compound 10” to 14"
• Action at high e: 0.050"
• Action at low E: 0.060"
• Truss rod: Turns smoothly
• Neck pickup DCR: 6.85k Ohms
• Middle pickup DCR: 6.89k Ohms
• Bridge pickup DCR: 6.91k Ohms
• Frets condition: Excellent, 9/10
• Cosmetic condition: Very good. Scuffs on the back lower edge
• Functional condition: Excellent
• Playability: Excellent
• Sound: Excellent

Features/specs: 


• Brand: Carvin
• Model: Bolt SSS Tremolo
• Country of origin: USA
• Body type: Solid body
• Body shape: S-style
• Body contours: Belly cut, forearm contour
• Body wood: Alder
• Body finish: Gloss with clear coat
• Body color: Vintage Sunburst
• Headstock: Six-in-line, 7-degree tilt
• Neck wood: One-piece maple
• Neck finish: Satin
• Fretboard wood: Ebony
• Neck profile: D shape
• Nut material: Graphite
• No. of frets: 22
• Fret size: Medium jumbo 

• Tuners: Sperzel locking
• Bridge: Wilkinson tremolo with six cast steel saddles
• Neck pickup: Fender Strat single coil
• Middle pickup: Fender Strat single coil (RWRP)
• Bridge pickup: Fender Strat single coil
• Controls: Volume, tone
• Pickup switch: Five-way blade
• Other switch: Mini-toggle turns on bridge pickup (Gilmour switch)
• Hardware: Black

Dr. T’s Professional Inspection and Setup:  You may find a similar instrument listed at a lower price, but ours may still provide better value as we include our professional inspection and setup. This service costs from $80 to $150 and up at most shops. With over 25 years in the industry, we’re convinced that a good setup is the single most important investment to improve the playability and sound of your guitar.  Here’s what in entails. We inspect the guitar and address issues. Next, we remove the strings and tighten and set the drag on the tuners. We inspect the frets, find any high spots, then level, crown and polish. We clean and oil the fingerboard, restring, tune to pitch and set the neck relief, action and intonation. We then play each fret and check for fret buzz and fret-outs during bends, and we fine-tune as required.  Next, we test the electronics, clean and tighten pots and jacks and balance the pickups.  Occasionally, we find a fault with the electronics, so we dig in and diagnose and repair that.  Once the electronics are tip top, we play the guitar to make sure everything is just right.  Finally, we clean and polish the guitar, then slacken the stings to get it ready for shipping.

String Gauges and Settings:   We do our setups using common string gauges and settings, which we've found work well for most players. For electrics, we use 9-42 gauge strings for Fender (25.5") scale guitars and 10-46 for Gibson (24.75") scale guitars.  We set action to 0.050 on the high e side and 0.060 on the low E side. This action is fairly low and allows for easy fretting without buzzing or sacrificing tone. If you have special preferences, please let us know, and we will do our best to accommodate you.

Light Gauge Strings: Why not let your amp do the work? We recommend light gauge strings on electrics, which makes fretting and bending easier. And if you want more volume, just turn up your amp. I don’t know anyone who thinks Tony Iommi or Billy Gibbons have thin tone - Tony uses 8’s and Billy uses 7’s. If you use 10’s you might consider 9’s, or if you use 9’s try 8’s. It will take a little time to get used to, but you’ll be surprised at how much easier your guitar is to play… and if you turn up your amp a little, you won’t be sacrificing volume or tone.

Fine Tuning Adjustments:  Your guitar will be playing and sounding wonderful when we finish our setup. However, occasionally minor adjustments will be needed after shipping due to changes in temperature and/or humidity, rough handling or other unfavorable conditions. Since we have no control over this, we cannot cover the cost of these adjustments. However, if your guitar was mishandled during shipping, please let us know, so we can see if a shipping claim is in order. Sometimes it’s possible to get you a partial refund to help cover issues if we can show that they were caused by shipping.

Condition Ratings: We rate each guitar’s condition using guidelines outlined by Reverb.  Please refer to that section of Reverb to better understand what each condition means.

Standard of Care:  We strive to meet our clients’ expectations, and we want you to be happy with your purchase. However, please keep in mind that guitars develop wear with use and it’s widely accepted that honest wear adds character and shows that the guitar has been loved. Our used and vintage guitars will have signs of use. Our Del Mar Lutherie brand guitars are hand-built and will have artifacts that some people might view as "imperfections".  If you want a guitar in “perfect” or “flawless” condition, we advise you to buy new from an authorized dealer or buy locally so you can inspect it in person. We do not guarantee that our guitars will be cosmetically flawless, and we don’t accept returns or give partial refunds due to cosmetic imperfections.

Specs:  We list specs as a courtesy. Some specs are measured by our techs. Others are taken from the manufacturer's data. Manufacturers change specs all the time, and their listed specs may not be 100% accurate. Also, some used guitars have mods that may not be apparent upon visual inspection. The guitar you will get is the one shown in the photos. If there are any "deal breaker" specs that you must have, please let us know so we can double check for you before your purchase.

Videos:  We often provide links to YouTube videos to provide our clients with more information. These videos will be of a similar make and model which is representative of the guitar in our listing. 

Shipping:  We ship guitars via UPS ground. The fee shown includes shipping within the contiguous USA with insurance. It also includes packaging materials and our time to pack up and drop off at UPS. For guitars, shipping costs are controlled by box size and insurance is based on value. Note that your guitar will ship without a case, unless one is described as included in the listing or you add one to your order. If you decline to add a case, we will pack your guitar well with bubble wrap and other padding and ship it in a sturdy guitar box. However, if you want your guitar to have even better protection, we encourage you to add a hard case to your order. See below for details.

Cases:  Some guitars we buy come with cases and some don't.  Some clients want cases, and some have so many they don't want more.  To offer flexibility, we make cases and bags optional and offer several types to better suit our clients’ needs.  This allows us to pass on some savings to those who don't want cases.  If you want a case, please let us know.  There are many benefits when you buy a case from us; we have good prices, we make sure your guitar fits, we offer free shipping on the case (when combined with a guitar) and we ship your guitar inside the case for the best possible protection. Each year, we see a small number of guitars arrive with damage caused by mishandling during shipping. However, when shipped inside a hard case, the incidence of damage is almost zero. See the top of the listing or inquire for options.

Delivery Time: We do our best to get your guitar setup, boxed and shipped as soon as possible. However, sometimes this can take a few days depending on how many guitars are in the queue, our current workload and other factors. Once UPS receives your guitar, they will estimate a delivery date, which you can access via Reverb. UPS will typically deliver your guitar within 2 to 7 business days after they receive it. Time varies depending on your distance from Southern California. If you're in a hurry, please let us know and we’ll do our best to accommodate you, or at least we can advise you of the estimated wait, so you can decide if you need to make other arrangements.

Damage Claims: Although rare, guitars sometimes are damaged during shipping. If you receive a guitar that is damaged, please let us know immediately so we can open a claim. We will ask you to send the following photos: overall view of the guitar; damaged areas of the guitar; overall view of the box; view showing the shipping label; view looking down into the top of the box with the guitar and packaging the way it was when you opened it; and view showing any damaged areas of the box. Important - Please keep the box and all packaging in case the carrier requires it for inspection. We will do our best to get this resolved ASAP, but please be patient, as we have no control over the time it takes the carrier to process the claim. Once the claim is approved, you will ship the guitar back to us with the return label we provide, and we will process your refund.

Returns and Canceled Orders:  We are a small business and can’t afford to offer free returns like the big guys. There is a lot of time, effort and cost involved with processing your order, pulling your guitar from inventory, setting it up, packing and shipping it. Please make sure you want the guitar before you commit to buy. If we agree to a return or agree to cancel your order, you will be responsible for shipping costs (both ways) and a restocking fee to cover our time.

Dr. T's Tone Factory & Del Mar Lutherie, Message from the Owner:  We are a small shop in San Diego County, California. We’re less than 15 miles from the old Carvin factory in San Diego, and about 20 miles from the current Kiesel factory in Escondido. We are huge fans of the build quality and value of the old Carvin electric guitars, which were made in San Diego County in the 1980's, 1990's and 2000's.  We are part of the local guitar community (Fender, Taylor, Kiesel) and build custom electric guitars, custom tube amps, and do mods and setups. We also buy, sell and trade vintage and used instruments. Our owner is a guitar enthusiast, wood worker and professional designer and engineer. We've been doing this type of work since 1999 and have hundreds of happy customers. We are a Reverb Preferred Seller, and our approval rating is 99.9%. 

Best wishes and happy strumming!

Dr T.