#WhyWeWeld: Rosa String Works

Jerry Rosa (@RosaStringWorks) is a musical instrument builder and repair specialist based in Newburg, Missouri. Today, we speak with Jerry, the founder, instrument builder, and musician.

From Bluegrass Roots

Jerry works on all stringed instruments. As he says, he works on any stringed instrument smaller than a piano. He got his start back in 1983, when he built his first mandolin. He enjoys bluegrass music, an old-time country style, and the mandolin is a prominent staple in the music. As he was part of the bluegrass scene at the time, many of his peers began asking him to fix their instruments.

From there, his business just kept growing and snowballed larger and larger to become a much bigger business than he had ever planned. His business reached far places on the earth as he obtained customers in all 50 states, and in his words, every other country you can think of. He even had to repair a mandolin that came all the way from an island called Palau, a country in Oceania, near the Philippines.

Sharing the Legacy

Unfortunately, as Jerry grew older, he began developing arthritis, which made him feel that he couldn’t keep up with the business anymore. Thus, he retired over two years ago. Despite retiring and with a reputation like his, he still constantly gets requests for instrument repair for anything from mandolins to guitars. He now only repairs instruments for family and friends. With his YouTube channel having over one hundred and ten thousand subscribers, he believes that it would be unfair to everyone even if he were to accept a single new repair commission.

People have reached out to him requesting that he take on an apprentice to share his knowledge with the next generation, but this is exactly what he believes he is doing with his YouTube channel. As Jerry stated, why would he want to take on an apprentice when he has over one hundred and ten thousand potential apprentices who are watching his videos on his YouTube channel? He shares all of his projects, what he does, and how he does it. His legacy can continue forward through his channel as he shares his knowledge, skill, and techniques.

The Godfather

Jerry’s work can be seen at the American Guitar Museum in New York as a centerpiece exhibit. There, you can see his custom 10-string mandolin that was one of his most difficult projects. As no tuners are made for 10-string mandolins, he had to make them from scratch by cutting two sets of tuning keys apart and putting them back together. The mandolin was commissioned for Carmine D’Amico, who played in the iconic opening wedding scene in the 1972 film The Godfather.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEIx7zlxE7o

The Smashed Guitar Repair

The most difficult job Jerry has ever been commissioned for was when he was still out on tour with his very own bluegrass band. As they traveled all over the Midwest, once they hit Dodge City in Kansas playing a show one night, a fellow musician came up to him. “I heard you can fix anything,” they said. Jerry responded, acknowledging that he had, in fact, repaired a large number of instruments. Due to Jerry’s bad eyesight in the dark, as it was during a show at night, he was unable to see what the condition of the requested instrument was. Therefore, he took it home expecting he would be able to fix it easily.

Three days later, Jerry finally opened the case to inspect the instrument and found that the instrument was cracked across the grain of the wood, with glue poured all inside of the guitar shell ¼ inch thick. Jerry immediately called the guy and told him that he would do him a favor and throw it in the trash for him, as the guitar was FUBAR. The client immediately started crying, stating that it was his dad’s guitar and that it was a fine guitar. Jerry discovered that when this man and his band were drunk, they decided to put firecrackers inside the guitar for fun.

Because of the sentimental value the guitar held, Jerry went to work and got rid of the guitar top and recreated it. He then removed the glue and worked his magic. The guitar was born again. “He went on using that guitar for another 10 years,” chuckled Jerry. 10 years later, after he had passed away, his wife called Jerry asking the value of the guitar as she had a buyer offering $4000 for it. Jerry’s response was, “Sell it!”

Restoring a Fractured Chocolate

Jerry’s most meaningful work, as he sees it, was the work he did on Chocolate. Chocolate is a $30,000.00 violin that a woman received as a child and named Chocolate. One day, the violin was completely destroyed and shattered during a moving incident when it was crushed. She was 13 years old when it was destroyed. Once she reached her 20s, she went off to Europe, and her parents sent the violin anywhere they could, but they couldn’t find anyone willing to repair it until it landed in Jerry’s hands. Jerry repaired the violin to a new state, at which point she burst into tears of happiness. She wrote Jerry some letters to express her thanks. This entire story can be viewed on his YouTube channel as a series called “Chocolate.”

Fabricating a Sawmill from Vibes

Despite stringed instruments being Jerry’s bread and butter, he also works on anything that he can get his hands on or repair himself. From instruments to sawmills to firearms and pond dredgers, he does it all himself. His philosophy is that things are a lot easier to fix than people think. People just need to try things for themselves, rather than paying someone an excessive amount of money to do a simple task that they probably could have just done themselves if they just tried.

One of Jerry’s most famous projects on YouTube is his sawmill. He completely went freestyle on the sawmill with no written plans; he created the entire thing by feel and “eyeballing it.” He stated that he just imagined it in his head and went through with whatever he thought would work in the moment. He stated that he could see the end product before he even started.

He got two 20-foot-long, quarter-inch-thick angle irons, and he put them at his feet where he thought they looked about right and went from there. “To this day, I still have people contacting me by email requesting the plans I used for the sawmill, but I keep telling them that I had no plans, and I did it all by feel and whatever looks right,” exclaimed Jerry. Yet, this is only what comes from years of creating things and fabricating things.

Despite taking on such massive projects, from completely destroyed guitars to freestyling a sawmill from scratch, Jerry recommends that people need to learn to crawl before they can run. He believes you must start small. He is currently trying to get his four grandsons into fabricating and repairing their own things. As he says, he has been successful in attracting the interest of three out of four. From there, he will show the ropes to his own grandchildren to ensure that his skills are passed on to the next generation.

Jerry Rosa’s work can be found over at RosaStringWorks on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/c/RosaStringWorks