New lefty Kahler Steeler review

In October 2025 I got in touch with Kahler in the United States after having read their announcements about the new 2700 Fulcrum series being relaunched. I bought a left-handed Kahler Steeler Traditional after watching this YouTube video:

I do not have a guitar to hand to install it into as the block is wider than a Floyd Rose cavity and it will not go straight in to anything routed for a Floyd Rose. But at this stage, I will not be installing it.

Here is my review:

• I am really disappointed that the baseplate is still just a right-handed base with a hole drilled into the other side, just like they did it in the 1980s. It has literally just been put on a drill press and drilled. It's not even neatly done. Literally on and off in one minute.

• I am horrified at the amount of surface rust and tarnishing this unit has. It has rust along the leading edge of the baseplate, the tail and the rear of the base. There is considerable tarnishing along the base of the tail. I've never seen that on a Floyd or even an aftermarket Floyd! My lefty Gaskell Concord from 2009 has a chrome Gaskell OEM Floyd that has been put through hell and the plating is still perfect. That tremolo was made in Korea. What it looks like to me is that for me they used a baseplate that they had lying around for the last 30 years and threw some modern saddles on. There is no way I can put this thing on a high-end custom guitar. No customer would accept that.

• This is a very expensive product. At over AU$800, just for the basic version (including shipping), this bridge is AU$300 more expensive than a lefty Original Floyd Rose and $500 more expensive than a Gotoh GE1996T. The cost is way out of proportion to the quality of the received product. Knowing I was a builder and not an end user if he'd said to me something like: "I've got an old plate lying around. We'll drill a hole for the arm and you can have it for $100. Use it for testing..." then I would not be doing this review.

• It appears they are still using legacy tooling for the baseplates, if they are in fact, actually making any new ones and not just using up leftover pates from the 1990s. The base still says "licensed under Floyd Rose patents"? The patents expired in 2002! Do you see the Gotoh GE1996T or the Ibanez EDGE tremolos with any licensing statement these days?

• I should have seen this as a red flag straight off the bat. When I asked the sales representative to confirm if the post spacing was 74mm his response was "that stuff is too geeky for me" and I never got an answer to my question.

The positive: It is a very solid unit. Decent American steel. Technologically, with the autolatch functionality, it is a step up from a Floyd Rose. It has a quality brass block. I am sure it would sound great. But these positives are not enough to offset the negatives I have just pointed out. It is not going into a guitar.

Did they just want to "get rid of the lefty?"

I will contact Kahler and be polite but let them know of my concerns. I will update this post when I hear something back.