Luthier tends to sick instruments
 
Sherry Boas
Sentinel Correspondent

June 11, 2001

SORRENTO -- Pat McLaughlin's business, Red Barn Luthier, is situated on the edge of east Lake County, down a narrow, rutted clay driveway far from any of the county's busy town centers.

The sign out on County Road 437 is small, faded and easy to miss.

But that doesn't stop people from seeking out and tracking him down.

They travel from all over to have their musical instruments repaired, rebuilt and, occasionally, handcrafted by this self-taught luthier — a maker of stringed instruments.

"One of our neighbors told my husband about him," said Rose Freeman who had driven recently from Scottish Highlands in Leesburg with her husband, Harold, to see if McLaughlin could repair the pick-up on his 1950s-era Epiphone guitar.

"Harold plays in a band at Scottish Highlands and needs to have his guitar fixed," she said.

After admiring the instrument and labeling it a "classic," McLaughlin teasingly chastised Freeman for his makeshift repairs.

"That guitar is a beauty," he said, "But those are some of the worst patch jobs I've ever seen!"

Several minutes and a couple of amusing anecdotes later, the Freemans were on their way home and McLaughlin had another patient to add to his collection of ailing instruments.

The "ward" looked crowded. Bruised banjos hung from the ceiling next to mangled mandolins, scarred guitars and one sad ukelele with a large gash in its small body.

A big bass fiddle, a harp, a few more guitars and several brass instruments rested nearby in varying stages of recovery.

McLaughlin, who was trained to be a chemist, worked in that field for many years before becoming a high school physics and chemistry teacher.

He eventually gave that up to become a luthier and has been running his current business full time since 1984.

He tackles all types of instrument repairs except keyboards.

While band instrument repair is his mainstay — ask him about the trombone with seven pencil stubs jammed into it — he will work on anything musical. Some instruments don't even have names, like the combination dobro/banjo he is almost finished custom building for a customer.

It is a uniquely shaped stringed instrument complete with highly detailed mother-of-pearl inlay work on the neck and 85 layers of lacquer on the body.

"I've spent over 200 hours so far on this ‘dobjo' or ‘bandobro,' whatever you want to call it. It doesn't sound like either," McLaughlin said while demonstrating some fancy finger picking on the handmade hybrid.

McLaughlin not only repairs and custom builds instruments, he plays a wide variety of instruments himself including the banjo, which he has strummed for years with his group the Blackwater Creek Bluegrass Band.

"My wife Suzy and I started the band back in the '70s when our kids were little. It was a family band back then," said McLaughlin, 55, the father of seven children. "These days Suzy still plays the bass, I'm still plucking the banjo, but the kids are now grown and off on their own. Dale Rathbun now plays with us on guitar and Bill Bailey joins in on the fiddle and mandolin."

The band performs in the area about twice a month and has been booked at local street festivals and art festivals for years.

"I don't think we've ever played at a gig we haven't enjoyed," McLaughlin said.

The phone keeps ringing and customers keep stirring up clouds of dust as they bump along the narrow drive to McLaughlin's workshop built out of salvaged pine wood so old and hard that each piece had to be hand drilled before it could be nailed.

Elaine Kimble drives up with her son, Blake, 11, and his two-day-old tenor sax that wouldn't work.

"Pat is great," the Leesburg mother said as McLaughlin straightened out the pivot post for a side B flat key. "I've been here before when my daughter's flute needed an overall. He does wonderful work and doesn't charge near enough."

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