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Ah, it's been a busy past several weeks down in the shop. I'm just putting the finishing touches on a really nice tackhead minstrel banjo for Josh in New York. It's got a fanciful, turned dowel stick and is built around an exquisite 19th century grain measure from New Hampshire. He wanted me to reproduce a banjo that he saw on the website, but gave my free reign to improve on it as I saw fit, and the results are really gratifying so far. Tonight after dinner I fired up a few episodes of This American Life and headed down into the shop, where I managed to tack the head on and dry it out. I also recently finished a nice gourd with a bocote fingerboard for Carolyn in Texas, shipped out a canarywood model to Jan in Ohio, and am about to start working on an interesting project with Tim Twiss, banjo player and historian from Michigan. We're going to explore an older, more primitive aesthetic, and I'm going to incorporate that into a gourd banjo that I'll be building during the coming weeks.

In terms of supplies, I've got a large shipment of lumber coming in from a sawyer in Indiana that will include some beautiful figured and plain black walnut, red oak, and ash, and I'm still trying to work out a deal with a woodworker in Kentucky for a large shipment of nicely aged cherry and walnut. In addition, I've got several grain measures coming, as well as a new shipment of pear gourds en-route from welburn.

All this work was complicated a bit by a looming application for graduate school that I finally finished (time to open up the windows, dust off the bookshelf, and let some sunlight into the brain again), and all seems to be back on track again. I would like to start putting together some minstrel banjos with proper, adjustable heads, but first I have to either find a reliable source for hardware, or start learning to do the metalwork myself, though I'm not sure I really have the capacity for that right now.

Michaela is asleep, and I'm hiding in the corner typing this. If I wake her up I'll be in trouble, so I'll end this entry with a shot of the banjo I did for Carolyn, and Josh's banjo just before I tacked the head on (ignore any dirty laundry that might be peripherally visible, please).