Dear friends
I met Lance S Lehman for the first time, at NAMM 2016. A friend told me to go see the LSL booth, and talk to Lance. I met a very enthusiatic man, proud of his products, and you could sense that being in business was not new to him. At that time, I was distributing cheaper products, like guitars in 40′ containers, and reselling to dealers in Europe. So LSL did not really fit in with the business.  But i stayed in contact with Lance’s son, Johny, who was now handling sales. Maybe, in the back of my head, I knew, that someday i would move into selling real guitars again. So when GuitarGandhi was born, LSL was one of the companies on my list. And now, finally after 6 years, LSL guitars will be on our website.

LSL Guitars are made in Santa Clarita, Ca, about 40 minutes northwest of Los Angeles.
The company was founded by Lance S Lehman, who started out in the San Fransico area, as a Banjo teacher in the early 70’s, and then went on to become a guitar Luthier. Lance was the first employee of SAGA Instruments (Blueridge, SAGA, etc) and did all the QC, packing and setup.
Both Lance and his wife are woodworkers, so they moved to LA, where they started a woodshop. Next thing, he found himself with 200 employees, building exclusive speaker cabinets for JBL, Cerwin,  Vega, Infinity, Sony a.m.o. After a bankruptcy, Lance and his wife spent 8 years in China, until the family finally relocated to Santa Clarita.
Lance wanted to build himself a decent guitar, a blonde 52 Tele type. He took the guitar over to California Guitars & Amps in Sherman Oaks, and they were so impressed, that they asked him to build another for the store.
This was really the beginning of LSL Guitars – a company that grew out of an experienced woodworker/luthiers dream of building his own guitar. With his old connections in the wood business, he was able to get hold of premier woods for guitarbuilding, and LSL soon grew a reputation among hi end players like Carl Verheyen, who has his own signature model. Also Walter Becker (R.I.P) of Steely Dan, was a fan and owned a few LSL’s.

All guitar builders, are using a combination of CNC machines, as well as work by hand. In an intreview, Lance explains:

“Here’s the deal….If you’re going to be in the guitar business, making the same shape and style, using the same materials as companies that make somewhere like 700 per day, you had damn well better be good. I don’t think there is a place for a “good” guitar company. Good won’t last a week in this business. Especially if you’re doing it in California. So I decided from day one that we would make as much of the guitar as we possibly could so that we could control it all. That includes, the body, neck, pickguards, pickups, many of our bridges, truss-rods, neck plates, Tele-saddles with our own custom-made springs and screws. We even cast our own fingerboard dots (you can get any color you want).

I wouldn’t say that we do the entire guitar by hand. We do accuracy features with machinery and feel features by hand. For instance; the front of our necks are CNC cut with all features at once. We do the outside, fingerboard radius, dots, fret slots, nut slot and headstock thicknessing all in one setup so everything is extremely accurate. Just what you want for the front of the neck. The back of the neck (the feel side), we do completely by hand. Same goes for the bodies, arm and hand contours are done by hand while the accuracy features are done by machine. This makes sense. Handmade is great when applied to features that need that human touch. On the other hand I want fret slots to be perfectly placed every single time.”

LSL guitars are aiming at being the best alternative to old guitars. Thin Nitro coating, nice aging, great woods and attention to detail, are key words, when it comes to LSL. Fretwork, cutting the right nut, and working with Nitro finishes, all requires skilled people. You can of course buy non-aged guitars, its up to you, and we will have both in stock.
LSL is also offering more contemporary designs, like the XT4, as well as Double Cuts in Kalamazoo style.
I am happy to include LSL on our website – look out for some great guitars!
Best
GG