A builder of custom homes for more than 20 years, Lance McCollum began his personal adventure into the world of handmade guitars never dreaming where it would lead. He simply hadn’t found the sound he was looking for in something he could buy off the rack. Born in Southern California, Lance started early on to gather the skills he would need in his current livelihood. At the age of 12 he redesigned his own and his friends’ BMX bicycles. After welding them into a new form he then embellished them, and the rider’s helmets, with fancy paint jobs. In his teenage years, he moved into designing and shaping his own surfboards, and reconfiguring the fin placement, and topping them off with stand-out airbrushed artwork. High school included awards won in drafting class and an affinity for jewelry design in art class. Playing since he was 12, Lance bought, reconditioned, and let go of many guitars, never quite finding the sound he was seeking. Finally deciding to take a Martin kit, the advice and counsel of a local luthier, and give it a go (yes, he even modified the Martin kit!), he saw a light at the end of the tunnel. The next guitar was not a kit, and by the fifth guitar, he knew he was on the right track. He is still working to perfect the sound he seeks, and loving it all the way. A die-hard fan of the traditional dovetail neck joint, Lance’s building style produces a guitar that has the tonal complexities of a grand piano with all the notes speaking independently, but still blending evenly with great sustain all the way up the fingerboard. In addition to this tonal balance, he steps outside the traditional building mode with the use of some of the world’s most strikingly beautiful woods and unique soundhole rosettes.

Sadly, we lost Lance to a aeoric aneurysm in 2009.