Lambdin-Morello Coastal Semihollow Guitar – New

The Coastal Semihollow from luthiers Agustin Gaytan Morello and Ben Lambdin is aptly named. Almost all the woods used in its construction comes from the West Coast. The arched top is made from hand-pressed and laminated Western Red Cedar, the back and sides are layered Myrtle and the neck is Bay Laurel. The center block is old growth Redwood. The only non-West Coast wood is the ebony fretboard. The pickups are hand made by Matthew Spady of Devil Dog Guitar Company, a small firm based in Southern California. They consist of a P-90-style single coil in the neck and a humbucker in the bridge position. It has satin hempseed oil finish.

We first became aware of Ben Lambdin and Agustin Gaytan Morello through their work with Kenny Hill, a luthier who made high end classical guitars in a small workshop in the mountains of Santa Cruz, California. Lambdin and Morello wanted to expand beyond the classical guitar and a few years ago they set out to craft electric guitars using tonewoods native to the West Coast and Pacific Northwest like Redwood, Myrtle, Bay Laurel, Engelmann Spruce, Cedar, Acacia and Walnut.

Over the past couple of years, Ben and Augustin have been stopping by Gryphon periodically to show us their latest creations. Everyone here has been impressed with the fit and finish of the guitars but were even more excited by the sound. This Coastal Semihollow is our first Lambdin-Morello and it has a sweet, singing tone thats hard to resist. Augustin and Ben make every guitar by hand so the supply is very limited.