While attempting to source materials in an industrial area of New York City, he visited Lane Marine, a lifeboat builder, where he met with Bob Young, an engineer with deep knowledge of carbon fiber.

[2] A company, Steinberger Sound, was duly set up to manufacture the basses and later the guitars on a larger scale at Newburgh, New York.

With changing musical fashions and the complex manufacturing and inordinately high prices putting off buyers and producer alike, Gibson stopped selling Steinberger guitars in the mid-1990s.

Enthusiasm for the instruments has now revived to a sufficient extent that they are again being produced and sold, although the newer versions share few commonalities with the original "Newburgh" designs.

By moving the capo closer to the end of the neck, one can play notes lower than standard guitar tuning without having to detune.

The tuners utilized a finer than normal 18:1 gear ratio, with 40 threads per inch, which gave slower but more precise adjustment and helped reduce string slippage.

Depending on the tailpiece, calibrated or uncalibrated double-ball end strings were used, with the former required in order to use the transposing feature of the TransTrem vibrato unit.

The rationale for the overall design was the elimination of unnecessary weight, especially the unbalanced headstock, and the use of modern materials, such as graphite, for their advantages over wood.

Later designs included: Several companies licensed the headless technology from Steinberger and produced numerous all-wood clones or similar instruments.

The G3T is a wooden rendering of the Steinberger composite guitar in appearance, with maple neck and rosewood fingerboard, and licensed tremolo bridge.