Building

Learning the Art of Lutherie

My father is a hobbyist luthier, and has built 8 wonderful guitars, including the classical that I currently play (an incredibly well balanced and beautiful rosewood and spruce guitar). I was fortunate enough to learn both guitar playing and guitar construction under his patient tutelage (his patience is a continual source of wonderment to me as I am an incredibly stubborn person) prior to attending the University of Western Ontario for my undergraduate degree.

I have moved my small workshop around with me over the past several years, and have built a few guitars along the way. In 2016, I was fortunate enough to move into my own home with space to accommodate a permanent workspace.

Current Work and Commissioning Inquiries

Please peruse this webpage to see some of the guitars that I have built, and visit my blog to follow my current projects.

For pricing, building questions, or other inquiries, please send me an email at emilyshawguitar@gmail.com or fill out the contact form at the bottom of this page. I look forward to hearing from you!

Guitars that I would like to build

Although I am always happy to build custom guitars of (almost) any description, I have a few pieces of wood in my stockpile that I would like to use in the next few years. If one of these guitars interest you, please let me know. Regardless of orders, I will gradually work through building these guitars, and will post them for sale as they become available. 

• Domestic wood classical guitar using bitter cherry and flamed redwood. Lattice bracing. Scale length by request. 
• Domestic wood steel string guitar with flamed & spalted maple back/sides and a flamed redwood soundboard. Walnut neck. Scale length by request, and various body shape options available. 
• Torres FE17 inspired guitar (small-bodied classical) with flamed & spalted maple back and sides, and spruce soundboard. Scale length by request. 
• Padauk and Sitka Spruce (prominent bearclaw figure) classical or small-bodied steel-string guitar. Scale length by request. 
• Zebrano and Sitka spruce classical or parlour steel-string guitar. Scale length by request. 

For custom orders, please contact me by email: emilyshawguitar@gmail.com. At this point, I am most interested in building guitars with domestic woods or other sustainably harvested species.