Going to pick up a piece for a broken guitar turned out to be a career change for former freelance photographer Gary Gellert.
“It was about 1997, I guess. I needed a part for a guitar and a music store was supposed to get it for me and he failed to get it and said, ‘Well, you can pick it up at the luthier,’” recalled Gellert.
“The luthier had a course and he said, ‘Why don’t you take the course,’” Gellert added.
Gellert took the course and after making his first guitar, was offered an apprenticeship of sorts with the guitar-maker who covered warranties for a major guitar manufacturer.
“He said you can do repairs here and I’ll repay you in wood,” said Gellert, who began experimenting with the supplies and hasn’t looked back since.
Listening to a variety of music, with the company of several nosy cats, Gellert spends at least five hours day in his Emo workshop painstakingly repairing old, damaged instruments or crafting new ones.
From cracked bodies to warped necks, lost ebony or broken shell patterns and other missing pieces, Gellert said he always relishes a new challenge.
Holding up a 1910 banjo, he began to explain one of many current restoration projects.
“This is for a lady in Fort Frances. It came in a filter queen box and was in quite bad shape,” he said.
His shop is full of clamps, chemistry labs, and miniature tools as well as a wide collection of new, restored, and decrepit stringed instruments.
“When you get an old one that’s quite beat up and then you put so much work into it and it gets playing and you hear it, it’s really really nice,” Gellert noted.
Pulling out a 1915 Washburn, a homemade acoustic with inlaid shells, a 1950 Gibson L50, an old violin, a half-built electric guitar, a mandolin, and several other instruments, Gellert’s eyes light up as he explains the work that will go into them.
“Sometimes you have to make a special tool just for a special job,” he said.
“There’s about 130 pounds pulling on this neck through the strings and it’s just made of bits of wood glued together,” he noted, holding up another piece of a work in progress.
Although he repairs any stringed instrument, most of Gellert’s time so far has been spent on acoustic guitars. “You can use a router and a hand saw to make an electric,” he noted.
Business is picking up for Gellert, who moved to Emo about 18 months ago when his wife got a job at the clinic there. “There’s not too many people around that do this kind of work,” he remarked.
Local bands, music stores, and independent musicians are beginning to turn to his Emo shop, as well as owners of rediscovered instruments or ones of sentimental value.
During his free time, Gellert also is repairing old instruments picked up at garage sales or shops throughout the region.
“Part of the fun is searching for them. They’re on e-Bay but they sell for too much,” he said.
At first, Gellert repaired any broken instruments. But he has since realized that at times, it isn’t worth the effort if the instrument is run-of-the-mill with little value.
“Sometimes to spend 60 to 70 hours restoring it just isn’t worth it, you might as well build a new one. I started to realize that,” he noted.
Although Gellert spends hours working on the instruments, he admitted he doesn’t have the knack to be a musician.
“Those who don’t play them very well fix them,” he laughed. “I fool around once in a while. I can read music, and take the guitar by the river and play . . . I think that’s great.
“It’s not like a job to me. I would never retire from doing this because it’s something I love to do,” he added.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
