Hi! We're the Llewellyns! 

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Cameron is the Luthier, husband and (best) dad of our family business. Elliot is our toddler son and when he's not building towers out of blocks, he loves spending time in the shop with his dad. I am Alisha, a proud Luthier's wife and Elliot's mom, I handle business tasks that don't make sawdust.    

We are grateful to have moved to Nashville, TN from Fort Lauderdale, FL in 2020. We now reside in Lewisburg, TN an hour South of Nashville. We love being contributors to the Music City area and collaborating with the amazing people we have found. Below is the story of how this all got started. For ya'll who are really into origin stories, you're going to love it.

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In his own words:

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I deeply love and appreciate the guitar as both a precision ruler for sonic distances and as the iconic blowtorch of sound that it can be at times.

When I buy a guitar it needs to reflect the seriousness and beauty that guitars have in my mind... in each component and from every angle.

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I build the instruments that I once went looking for and did not find.

At a certain point in my life I was looking to retire the guitar I had been playing daily for many years. I had hoped to find an heirloom quality guitar that was made with fine woods and appointments. Something where all the decisions regarding design, construction and components were made with the  player in mind. An instrument that was thoughtfully designed to gracefully (if not easily) withstand the stress of being a guitar.
I always expected a nice guitar to feel like fine furniture in my hands but they have always felt like heavy plastic toys. No matter how expensive or which company made them.

My last bought guitar was from one of the most popular brands in the world. I have a considerable respect for what they have done to elevate guitar making standards and aesthetics in the last 40 years. And they made both of the guitars that I have ever truly enjoyed as a player.

Over a 15 year period I grew to be really annoyed that such an expensive guitar was made with a mahogany body and neck, nickel silver frets, plastic side dots and plastic cavity covers, a chrome plated bridge that corroded quickly and a compression truss rod that counteracts neck bow by applying a crushing force to the wood fibers.

It also had a bad fret job in nickel silver frets that I flattened with daily playing in a year or so.

Side dots, pickguards, knobs, truss rod covers and electronics cav covers should all be made with metals or wood in my opinion. Certainly on heirloom priced instruments.

I sleep very well at night these days knowing that guitars like the one I went in search of, do in fact exist... and that one is near at hand.

Having to become the guy who makes them was a price I was willing to pay.

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DESCRIPTION OF THE FIRST GUITAR I BUILT FOR MYSELF:

The side dots are mosaic pins. The mosaic pins are stainless steel rod and brass tubes nested in a larger stainless tube. The three interior brass tubes I filled with aircraft-grade epoxy and an electric blue glow powder. They are subtly visible in the dark.

The mosaic pin at the 3rd fret is flanked by 2mm 18k gold rod because this guitar was the 3rd I had built. The first at that time (and the only to date) that I have made with myself as the client.

The body is a 1 inch thick, single piece 5A quilted maple billet.

(Just because an audience cannot see the body wood, does not mean it should be made with cheap, lifeless junk. “You’re the only one who sees it though,” is the argument I’ve been given countless times for using inexpensive and inglorious body materials. Yes. I’m gonna see it. 

The top is a 2 piece, .75” thick curly claro walnut carved top. 

The neck is (quartersawn) Pau Rosa/Ebony/Pau Rosa. Natural (unstained) oil finish. Both woods are so dense they can be polished without a film finish.

The headstock is a scarf jointed, figured maple to reduce the weight and prevent neckdive.

Fretboard is one piece of Brazillian Kingwood (Dalbergia Cerensis; a true rosewood). No binding.

The yellow wood on the treble side of the fretboard is the sapwood of the Brazilian Kingwood.

Jescar (.080x.040) Stainless Steel frets. These are on the small side like old Martin guitars. (I press hard on strings and jumbos play sharp and feel like railroad ties to me.)

Titanium TiSonix bridge.

Lace Hot Gold single coil pickups.

Graphtech Ratio locking tuners.

Dunlop Flushmount strap locks.

 

The electronics cavity cover is stabilized. That is why it looks so different from the rest of the body wood. Stabilized- immersed in cactus juice under a vacuum press, then baked (before it is sawn, shaped and magnetized) to prevent such a thin piece if figured wood from changing shape over time.

Matching handmade strap. 2 layers of black suede, 1 layer of hair on hide