luthier in or near St. Louis

[Don Christy]

Anyone able to recommend a luthier in the St. Louis area? I'm looking to have some work done on the mando.
Thanks,
Don

[PhilGE]

I think you can reach Geoff Seitz HERE. (VSeitz@aol.com) Geoff is a great old-time fiddler and fiddle repair person. If he can't fix it for you, he can refer you to someone who'll do the job right.
-Phil

[Joe Mendel]

Don,
I hope you don't mind if I recommend myself. I do the repair for Fazio's & Mozongo in west St. Louis county.
E-mail me @ joemendel57@aol.com .

[cdwhit]

There is also a Luthier that's supposed to be pretty good at Music Folk

http://musicfolk.com/

He's repaired an accordian and an autoharpp for us, but never a mando, though the store has the largest selection of mandos I've seen in St. Louis.

[John Flynn]

I am not a luthier, but I have some considerable experience as a St. Louis luthiery customer. IMHO:

> Goeff Sietz is great, and a fine fiddler, but he is mostly a violin luthier. He can do fretted stuff, but it is not his forte'. He is also expensive, from what I hear.

> Music Folk has a very good luthier, Andy Ploof, but he also owns the store and it is unlikely that he will actually have the time to be the one to work on a routine repair. I have had two repairs messed up there and they were really dumb screw ups. They also are not good at making it right when they do mess up. I have talked with several other musicians around town who won't go near their repair shop any more.

> Joe Mendel, above, is THE MAN. He is a great guy, a fine mando player, has serious luthiery training and experience and has a great shop. He is the guy you want to see.

> To be fair, there is another good guy in town, Jimmy Gravity, who has a shop down off Broadway. He is mostly a guitar guy, but he does stuff like major re-construction of vintage Martin guitars for people in Nashville. His store is kind of cool, too, in an early 1900's retro sort of way.

> DO NOT be tempted to go to the St. Louis School of Luthiery. 'Nuff said.

[Don Christy]

Thanks everyone for the info. The work I'm having done is pretty minor. I want to refit a new bridge, install a new tail piece, and maybe refit/adjust the nut. Not a big repair job, but I still want someone who will do it right. I'll be contacting Joe Mendel when I'm ready to have the work done, but I probably will go check out Gravity's shop. It sounds cool.

Thanks again everyone,
Don