Ellis Mandolins
Ellis Mandolins
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About Ellis Mandolins
Tom in his element


Front and back of a mandolin Tom built for Ricky Skaggs
Tom Ellis grew up near Houston and enjoyed woodworking in his teens – mostly building surfboards. He built his first mandolin in 1972, which began the course of his career as a luthier.

Soon after he completed his first instrument, he moved to Austin, TX and established his workshop on 3 acres and started building mandolins as a business. He showed his second mandolin, a from-scratch F-5, to Ricky Skaggs who thought that it sounded pretty darn good.

The unique voice of Ellis mandolins was praised by David Grisman in a February '81 Frets Magazine article where he identied Tom as one of the top 5 mandolin builders alive. Tom and his shop were soon soon featured in the April '86 issue of Frets Magazine during the build of Ricky Skaggs' second Ellis F-5. That mandolin was also featured in Fine Woodworking Design Book Four.

Front and back of a mandolin Tom built for Ricky Skaggs


Tom continued building mandolins for his customers through the early 90's, when the recession made it clear that custom building, which takes hundreds of hours per instrument wasn't going to pay the bills alone.

As a way to carry on through the recession, he started Precision Pearl Inlay, which allowed him to leverage CNC technology to manufacture consistent and precice pearl inlays for the guitar industry. Since 1993, Precision Pearl Inc. has grown to include nearly a dozen employees and customers from many fine custom guitar makers and major guitar manufacturers all over the world.

In 2004, it occured to Tom that he could leverage his experience with CNC manufacturing to streamline the repetitive parts building for his mandolins, as well as fixtures and jigs to aid in assembly. Even with all of the technology involved, building mandolins requires an incredible amount of hand work--and none of this would be possible without Tom's team and the help of master luthier Pava Knezevic.

Tom in his element


Once specifications for a build are complete, tonewoods are selected and parts are made. Tom then begins the journey of turning those parts into a mandolin, hand crafting them all into their final shapes and configurations. Tom does all of the top voicing, graduating, and tone bar installation, along with graduating the backs and shaping the necks of each instrument. Pava lends her expertise to help with body assembly, and with her incredibe binding work that frames all of Tom's final carving.

In the end, every mandolin returns to Tom's bench for final setup and inspection before it begins its journey to a new home.

The resulting instruments are beautiful, wonderful sounding works of art, enjoyed and played by musicians around the world.
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Team Members
 
Ellis Mandolins is made up of a great team of craftsmen and artists
who help Tom handcraft his mandolins.
 
Pava Knezevic
 
In 2003 Pava came to work with Tom Ellis at Precision Pearl Inc., working primarily on inlay. It was Pava's skill that inspired Tom to bring back the Ellis Mandolin brand in 2005 with Pava contributing her excellent assembly and finishing skills. In 2012 Tom thought it was time that Pava made a mandolin that is all her own -- and Pava Mandolins was born.
 
Visit Pava Mandolins
Josh Luttrell
 
Master Finisher Josh Luttrell has been working with Tom since he restarted mandolin production in 2005. His depth of experience working with stain and varnish is responsible for the flawless finishes on our mandolins.
Cathy Pelosi
 
Cathy is the business manager at Ellis Mandolins, Pava Mandolins, and Precision Pearl. In that role she contributes to everything from marketing to materials sourcing to orders and distributions. She makes sure we have everything we need to continue making Mandolins, and makes sure that our dealers and players can get their hands on them.
Mary Melena
 
Mary brings her artistic eye to Ellis Mandolins and helps with wood processing and part making. She is involved in all phases of neck production, fingerboards, pickguards and fret work.
Christian McAdams
 
Christian assists both Tom and Pava with their builds. He does all of our in house finish for Pava mandolins.