The Beginning

Ralph S. Jones, Sr. created Micro-Frets, Inc. in the 1960’s. Mr. Jones, an engineer, applied some common sense methods to creating a guitar. He noted that the strings were not properly intonated on most guitars. In an effort to compensate for this defect, he created the “Micro-Nut” replacing the nut. He designed a semi-hollow body design to improve the overall tone.

Mr. Jones also noted that some of the tremolo bars did not properly bend the pitch evenly for all strings. He created the patented “Calibrato” tremolo bar, which allows for individual string adjustment making it possible to bend the strings and have them stay in tune as the pitch is altered.

With Marion Huggins by his side, they built a pole building on 100 Grove Road in Frederick, Maryland (the outskirts of town.) It was not an easy task to get the dream off the ground.