The archetypal F-style would seem a tapped-out vein by now, yet Scott Lentz Sr. and Jr. consistently inject the magic that keeps players coming back for more.
Ask boutique-minded ists for recommendations on a superior bolt-neck, single-coil, single- or double-cutaway electric and the fervent cry “you need a Lentz!” will come back time and again. While the uninitiated might see few significant variables in the construction of archetypal slab-bodied instruments with 25.5-inch-scale necks attached by four wood screws, aficionados of the breed understand that myriad nuances in their construction come together to produce a professional instrument, and to justify the difference between a price tag of £400 and one of £4, 000.
The builders at California-based Lentz understand those nuances like few makers working today, and their mastery of them has delivered instruments that perform at the top of their capabilities, landing them in the hands of a long list of discerning pros, from Buddy Whittington to Phil X, to loads of hard-working studio and touring artists.
Used Lentz Hsl Flame Maple Burst 2006 With Hardshell Case
With some 40 years of building experience from Scott Sr., the last 20 years of which have been shared alongside his song Scott Jr., there’s a wealth of skill and knowledge to be tapped here, so let’s dig in and see what makes a Lentz stand out from the crowd.
In addition to the acclaim for the full-build instruments, Scott Sr. has long been known as one of the best finishing (and refinishing) artists in the business, and early in his career was authorised by CBS to work on Fender s. It’s worth noting, too, that all completed Lentz s are still finished in-house by Scott Sr. himself.
“Before I started making s, I had been doing finishing work on them, ” he tells us. “I can remember when I was around 20 years old, someone asked if I could fix an old Framus jazz that had a cracked side from being dropped. I went to my grandfather’s shop, put some glue in the crack and clamped it up. After everything dried, I redid the finish where the crack was. If you didn’t look really close, you couldn’t even tell it was broken.”
Lentz S Alder Maple Stratocaster Strat Electric Guitar Sunburst
Self-described as “a big woodshop guy in school”, Scott Sr. acquired many of the skills required for top-notch luthiery in what we might call the good old-fashioned way: by learning the craft through the working of the raw materials, before ever applying it to an instrument. Backed by a grandfather who also understood the trade and who had a workshop loaded with all the tools necessary to get the job done, he was off to a flying start when the building bug bit.
“I built my first in 1980, in Encinitas, California, ” he recalls. “It was a Strat-type . The body of that first was made from three pieces of alder that I bought at a local lumberyard. I used a bandsaw to cut the shape and routed the body and neck pocket with a template I made. I found a 70s Fender Strat neck for the and screwed on a tremolo. I customised the headstock – I cut it to a shape that I liked – and painted the body blue. One of my customers still has that . I sold it to him for a couple hundred bucks long ago.
“I thought that maybe I could make some money building s – I was already refinishing them by then – so I started making more s. One thing led to another, and Lentz s is the result.”
Mikkel Lentz, Michael Learns To Rock Guitarist Gear
In the early 80s, just as he was getting off the ground, Scott Sr. met an experienced -maker in Orange County named Dale Fortune, who had worked for Rickenbacker from the early to mid 70s, had known Leo Fender, and had been an authorised Fender repairman for many years. “I spent a lot of time with Dale at his shop, ” he says, “and I learned some really valuable lessons about -building from him.
“I also learned a lot from a local classical- builder, Jose Oribe. He talked about sound in a way that I could relate to and he introduced me to classical- building techniques like using hot hide glue, and much more.
“He told me to learn as much as I possibly could about what I was doing – to take it apart like a scientist and understand every part of the that I was building. Doing that would make my work easier and more enjoyable. When he said that, a light went off in my head. He was 100 per cent right. He’s a remarkable guy who still builds remarkable s.”
Lentz® T Style
Fortune on your side, however, the luthier’s lot is not a lucrative one and the location forced upon the Lentz family by a tight overheads found the -maker’s son learning the ways of the street from an early age.
“I grew up in a very tough neighborhood in Southern California, ” Scott Jr. tells us, “one that was rife with drug dealers and gangs. Luckily, I was afforded two vehicles for transportation out of ‘the life’: science fiction and luthiery.
“As I got a bit older, I realised that all the great sci-fi ideas would take many generations to come to fruition – certainly beyond my lifetime. So, I chose the more productive route, one that I could pursue in my lifetime: Lentz s. Being productive and creating things that will outlast me have always been, and always will be, important cornerstones in my life.”
Scott Lentz Guitar S Style Sunburst
If other teenagers might have rebelled against stepping into the family business, few such endeavours are likely as cool in the first place as building world-class electric s. Given that, and a free apprenticeship at the right hand of his own father, Scott Jr. says he never longed for any other way of life.
None of which is to say it wasn’t challenging getting up to speed in an organisation with such high demands and tight tolerances. When high-end s are the aim, near-perfection is the name of the game – and if Scott Jr. couldn’t nail it right out of the gates, well, he knew which way the door was.
“I’ve held Scott – my dad – in high regard for a long time, ” says Scott Jr. “The skillset he possesses is formidable… and not just with s! And he set the bar high for me. You get one chance at Lentz to make good things happen.
Lentz® T Lvs
“I remember early on being shown how to do a particular job – let’s say sanding a body. Scott would show me how to do the job one time – I got just one try to get it right. If I couldn’t perform the task, the job would be taken away from me, never to return and that was that! I knew early on that I needed to cut my own path to make it work. And I did just that.”
Along with taking on everything needed to build a first-class start to finish, Scott Jr. took naturally to the internals that make an electric electric. “That was the one thing that I had a natural talent for from the start. All Lentz s are wired in house, by me personally and I still really enjoy that particular part of -making. It caters to my OCD side for sure.”
Having posited at the top of this feature the notion that some ists might view the whole F-style homage as being fairly played-out by now, it’s interesting to probe Scott Sr. on what took him down this road in the first place.
Lentz Reserve “hyde Park” Tele
“I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Fender Strats for years, ” he reveals. “I love them when they work right and I hate them when they don’t. I think I decided to initially focus on the F-style s because I was confident I could build them – I knew I had the woodworking skills I needed to do it.
“Initially, I built the bodies, and I would send the neck and fingerboard wood up to Santa Barbara to a guy who would use that to build the necks, then send them back to me. After a while, I started building my own necks, too. Over the years, I’ve built all sorts of s that don’t fit the mould of the F-style bolt-on neck instruments, including set-neck and through-body necks.”
In the latter categories, Lentz’s Croydon model is beloved by many ists for its marriage of the Lentz-modified offset double-cutaway body shape with flame-maple/mahogany construction, a glued-in neck and dual humbuckers, to achieve a very Les Paul-leaning performance. Further proving there’s plenty of originality in the pudding, the DL-90 and HSL adapt the bolt-neck concept to an original body style with dual P-90s on the former, and one Tele bridge plate and pickup and one neck-position P-90 on the latter.
Used Lentz Dl 90 Silver
Right from the outset of the venture, Scott Sr. made a point of seeking out and acquiring the best wood he could lay his hands on and over the years, he and Scott Jr. got in
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