If you're looking for a repair shop that does excellent work, will tell you the truth and charge a fair rate, bring your instrument to The Strum Shop. Our techs have extensive experience with guitars, basses, banjos, mandolins, ukuleles, violins, violas and cellos, and even some of the more unusual instruments such as autoharps, lutes and ouds. Whatever you bring in, you can be confident we will treat it as if it was our own.
Most setups and minor repairs are handled in-house. Many major repairs on stringed instruments and all woodwind and brass instruments are handled by one of the excellent outside vendors with which we have partnered.
For the most accurate quotes on repairs, please bring your instruments into the shop.
Meet Our Repair Staff
Carl Chalmers
Luthier
Carl is our electric guitar specialist. He has been repairing and modifying guitars for the last 25 years and building custom guitars for the last 15 years. Some of his custom built guitars have been played in professional recording studios (Fat Cat Recording) and on stages in front of thousands of fans (Shoreline Amphitheater). Carl is mostly self taught when it comes to building and repairing electric guitars but he has also taken acoustic guitar building classes with Al Caldrone of ARC guitars and also a guitar neck building course with Perry Vasquez of Santa Cruz and UNGA guitars. Carl has also completed online building and repair courses from Robert O’Brien, Kent Everett and Micheal Bashkin to name just a few.
Dave 'Santa' Cavanagh
Luthier
Dave is our vintage acoustic instrument expert. He has been repairing guitars, banjos, mandolins, violins, ukuleles and many other various stringed instruments since 1969. He also owned a music store (Cole Music Co. in Sonora CA) from 1980 until he retired in 1990. Dave is honest to a fault and extremely well versed in all forms of stringed instrument repair. He still performs regularly on 5 string banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and guitar. Plays well with others, but has been known to run with scissors.
Ian Elliott
Setup Technician
After spending 3 and a half years in the Navy, Ian returned home and began working for his father at The Strum Shop. With his technical experience from working on mechanical and electronic equipment, he took to guitar setup and repair like a natural. In addition to having an aptitude for working with his hands, he's very good at making kids laugh as they're waiting for music lessons.
Daniel Elliott Jr.
Setup Technician
In addition to owning and managing the store, Daniel handles many of the ukulele, guitar and bass setups personally. During his time doing marketing for various musical instrument builders over the years, it became necessary to learn proper setup, care and maintenance of the instruments he was promoting. He began providing setup services more officially at Northridge Music Center around 2008 and continued to develop the craft under the tutelage of other more formally trained luthiers.