What We Build With, and Why We Do Not Publish a Brand Wall
Fitting studios love a logo wall. It looks impressive and it tells you nothing about whether the shop can get the part you actually need. Here is how sourcing genuinely works at this bench.
No House Line, No Quota, No Allocation
Carry Lab holds no exclusive agreement with any manufacturer. We do not have a minimum order to hit, we do not get a better margin on one head than another, and nobody sends us a target at the start of a quarter. That is a deliberate choice and it costs us money, because volume commitments come with better pricing.
What it buys is the ability to write down whatever the measurements point at. If your session says a mid-weight shaft from a small aftermarket outfit with no marketing budget, that goes on the sheet. If it says the stock shaft that came in your existing driver was right all along, that goes on the sheet too, and you keep your money.
Trial Stock Against Order Access
Two different things get confused constantly. Trial stock is what we physically have in the bay to put in your hands during a session. Order access is what we can actually obtain and build for you afterwards. The second list is enormously larger than the first, and no shop of any size has trial heads for everything in it.
Our trial rack is organised by profile band rather than by brand. During the session you will hit several shafts that span the range your numbers suggest. Once the band is settled, we order the exact model, and if you want a specific brand within that band we will source it.
Used, Pulled and Reclaimed Components
We keep a bin of pulled shafts, mostly recovered intact from re-shaft jobs. If one of them matches your fitting result, you are welcome to have it at a fraction of new cost. It gets profiled and frequency checked exactly the same way a new one does, and the reading goes on your spec sheet.
This is not a compromise option. A pulled shaft that measures correctly is identical in behaviour to a new one at half the price.
"Do You Carry Brand X?"
Almost certainly we can order it. Whether we have one in the trial rack is a separate question, and it depends on whether that model sits in a profile band we see often.
If you already own the club or shaft you are curious about, bring it. Your own equipment is always the most useful trial piece in the building.
How Long Ordering Takes
- Common shaft models: 2–4 business days
- Aftermarket premium shafts: 5–10 business days
- Iron head sets: 1–3 weeks depending on finish
- Custom stamping or paint fill: add 2 weeks
- Grips and ferrules: usually in stock
The Component Groups We Work In
Major Head Manufacturers
The large names whose drivers, fairway woods, hybrids and iron sets most players already own. Ordered as standard catalogue builds or as heads only for custom assembly here.
Forged Iron Specialists
Smaller forging houses producing blades, cavity backs and players' distance heads in limited runs. Longer lead times, better feel, and far more scope for lie and loft work.
Stock Shaft Programmes
The shafts supplied inside catalogue clubs. Frequently good and occasionally excellent, and always worth measuring before assuming they need replacing.
Aftermarket Graphite
Where most of the interesting profile variation lives. Wider weight range, tighter manufacturing tolerances, and considerably more choice about where the stiffness sits.
Steel Iron Shafts
Parallel and taper tip, across the full weight range, in constant weight and stepped weight designs. Still the default for a large share of the iron sets we build.
Grips, Tape and Ferrules
Rubber, cord, hybrid and oversize grips, plus the build-up tape and turned ferrules that let us land size and swing weight precisely.
How Anything We Order Gets Put Together
Sourcing is only half of it. A perfectly chosen component assembled carelessly is a wasted purchase, so every build here follows the same sequence regardless of what it cost.
- Shaft profiled and frequency read before any cut is made
- Tip trim taken from the manufacturer's chart for that specific model, not a generic one
- Tip and hosel abraded and cleaned; no shortcuts on surface prep
- Two-part epoxy mixed by weight, not by eye
- Builds cured vertical overnight in a temperature-stable rack
- Swing weight and butt frequency verified on the finished club before collection
- Final numbers written on your spec sheet and filed under your name