Custom Shop Guitars

Do you know what does custom shop means? Like custom shop cars, motorcycle, and furniture. With Palace Guitars it pertains to woodworking, most of us would define a custom shop as one dealing with made-to-order goods with certain specifications. Someone comes into my realm with a certain vision. That vision may be on a set of architectural prints or still locked in their brain waiting for extraction. In either case, it’s a vision or plan that they have, not me.

A good custom shop will have insight based on their experience that will help make the project better. That’s part of being custom-making concepts a reality. But there is more to running a custom shop than simply having the ability and experience to create someone’s dream. Figuring out what that requires a little digging. The concept is buried in first understanding the other meanings of the word custom. Although “made-to-order” is a correct characterization where you can personalize the headstock with your name or initials and you can CUSTOMIZE YOUR GUITAR: Mahogany, Alder, Maple, Basswood, Right/Left handed guitar, Body color, Neck profile, Fretboard inlay and Fret size.

We put your new instrument through the demanding 10-point inspection below:

 Fit & Finish.  We visually check your instrument for any scratches, dings, finish flaws, or other aesthetic imperfections.  We also pay attention to the neck, bridge, tuners, and any other part of the guitar that could be a loose or incorrect fit.

 Action.  We set up your guitar with low action.

 Buzzes.  Nothing drives me nuts more than a buzz.  If there’s a loose tuner bushing, rattling truss rod, or any other similar symptom, we’ll find it & fix it.

 Neck & Frets.  We inspect the neck angle so that your guitar has the appropriate amount of saddle height and a good break angle.  If there are any loose or high frets, we will address this problem too.

 Relief.  Along with the action, neck relief can really make a difference in a guitar’s playability.  Too little and you can get fret buzz & poor volume.  Too much, and your guitar can be uncomfortable, especially in the middle of the neck.

 Intonation.  Your new guitar should play in tune all the way up the neck.  We inspect and adjust the intonation to ensure that you don’t have any tuning problems higher up, with and without a capo.

 Electronics.  If your guitar comes with a pickup system, we will test it before it ships.  Poor sound, uneven string balance, and just plain component failure are all checked & corrected so you don’t have to fool around with it.

 Strings.  We guarantee your guitar will ship with a fresh set of the factory recommended strings on it.

 Case integrity.  Every once in a while we might find a guitar case with a bad latch or other imperfection.  It’s our job to correct the bad case.

 Test drive!  After we complete the above tasks, it’s our duty to play your guitar. There’s just no substitute. your guitar must be played to ensure that everything is in tip-top shape.

Yes, before shipping your guitar, you will receive pictures of it via email and we will wait for you to send us your final approval.

You may indicate in the Customization Requirements Field Box. For example:

Headstock Design.

Number of frets or No frets.

Inlays: dot, sharktooth, birds, tree of life, stars, skull, roman numbers, or No inlays.

Hardware color: Gold, Chrome, or Black

Assembled in China; Electronic Components and Woods are mostly imported from Japan, Korea, and Canada to ensure the best quality performance.

All the guitars on our website are available in left-handed version as well!

How to order a guitar in left-handed version?
Just choose the “Left Handed” option in the “Dexterity / Player Preference” variation on the product page and we will build your guitar in the lefty version perfectly.

Our professional guitar technicians inspect each instrument by hand, then perform a full, and precision setup. All brand new guitars need proper setup after shipment to suit your personal preference that would strongly correlate to your playing style. Truss rod adjustments are made to alter the straightness (flatness) of the neck. Truss rods often require adjusting when temperature and humidity change the amount of bow in the neck. Weather, specifically temperature and humidity, may have a dramatic impact on the way your instrument plays. All instrument woods expand and contract with seasonal actuations in temperature and humidity, and naturally, string height and playing action are affected. The neck needs a simple truss rod adjustment to correct any problems like fret buzz and bow neck which can be easily done by guitar experts. Please be advised that guitar necks are crafted from wood, and they will sometimes shift during shipping and as the temperature/humidity/elevation changes. An important part of maintaining your guitar is knowing how to adjust the truss rod. When a guitar experiences temperature and humidity swings, such as when seasons change, it can develop a slight bow in the neck that results in a guitar that plays buzzy or is suddenly much harder to fret. If this situation occurs, you can often correct the problem simply by tightening or loosening the truss rod. You may bring your brand new guitar to your Local Guitar Shop for proper setup and adjustment of the truss rod.

We build all our guitars from scratch at our own factory overseas. We sell all our guitars directly to you (the end user). This means you get factory-direct pricing because there are no 3rd party guitar manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or other middlemen between you and us.

Palace Guitars bodies, necks, and fretboards are all handcrafted from premium tonewoods.

Body woods include Alder, Ash, Basswood, Mahogany, various figured Maples, and some other exotic woods.

Neck woods include Maple, Mahogany, and some other exotic woods.

Fretboard woods include Maple, Rosewood, Ebony, and some other exotic woods.

All you need are very basic mechanical skills. Your guitar will come 100% assembled and set up in the box. All you will have to do is tune the guitar and possibly make a truss rod adjustment.

Fully assembled, our guitars weigh 6.5 lbs to 9 lbs. This varies slightly depending on the wood type, the components, and the size of the body/neck.

 

Order & Delivery

The delivery time depends on the building time of the instrument and the shipping time.

The building time depends on the instrument you choose to order. Please check the description of the instrument you wish to order to check its building time.

The shipping time depends on the shipping method you choose:

  • Standard Shipping. We offer Free Standard Shipping for all our instruments. The shipping time takes usually 15-70 days (35 days on average).
  • Express Shipping – costs $200. The shipping time takes usually 5-20 days (10 days on average).

The shipping price depends on the shipping method you choose:

  • Standard Shipping. We offer Free Standard Shipping for all our instruments.
  • Express Shipping is also available. It costs $200.

We indicate and report to the shipping company that the guitar is sent with a lower declared value than the purchased price and as a gift so that there will be a possible exemption on custom clearance fees, taxes or you may need to pay a little amount but it is necessary, or the customs will open the package and revalue the guitar. Based on our experience, the customs fees in Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, and Asia are very minimal since we declared the guitar as a gift with a lower purchase price in order to lessen the custom fees or even possible exemption. We have not received complaints from our valued customers regarding custom fees, taxes, and tariffs.

Once your order has been shipped, we will be providing you with the tracking number and a link to track your order, so you can conveniently monitor the shipment’s progress.

We do ship worldwide including USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, UK, South America, North America and Asia.

Please read the following terms and conditions carefully.

Prices: All prices are in U.S. dollars.

International Shipping Fees, Import Duties, and Taxes: Do not be confused with Government Custom Clearance Fees. Our prices do not include customs fees, taxes, and tariffs. Customers may be subject to customs fees and/or import duties and taxes, which are levied once a shipment reaches your country. You, the customer, are solely responsible for any additional customs clearance fees; we have no control over these charges and cannot predict what they may be.

International Returns/Seized or Packages Refused: If the package(s) is returned to us because of an address error made by the customer, the customer refuses the package, the customer does not pay the customs charges, or the items ordered are not allowed into the country by customs, the customer will be responsible for all the shipping costs relating to the shipment.