I will hopefully have the time to slow down a bit and work on some new projects in the coming months. I have a neck building project for an old, birds-eye maple pot to take care of. I have also been getting ready to start fabricating hardware for some adjustable-headed minstrel banjos. I dont have the ability to make castings, so fabricating the parts is going to take som ingenuity. However, it should be a fun and worthwhile undertaking, when all is said and done.

In the meantime, I have two banjos to comlpete for people, and am still taking orders.

The paduak banjo is coming along. The neck is mostly done, save for finish work. Most of my time this weekend is gong to be spent working on our garden, but this banjo should be done in about ten days. The lighting was terrible, so the photos arent so great, but to give an idea of the banjo...

The gallery has been updated with high resolution photos of the oak banjo. I liked the way it turned out so much that I am ordering a large batch shipment of oak blanks to make more necks out of.

Anyhow, I should have at least one new instrument finished, photographed and shipped by the ned of the month. check back for progress!

Well, new banjos are underway. Here are some photos. You can see all the ingredients for the banjo - a giant, 14-inch pot, the walnut block for the neck, and the paduak fingerboard. Once I set up the break angle for the peghead (2nd photo), i found that there was some beautiful grain and figuring around a knot in the wood that will sadly be covered up. I then clamped the paduak peghead overlay on and let it sit for the night (3rd photo). You can see what itll look like on monday when all the glue dries (4th photo). The deep orange paduak is going to contrast wonderfully with the washed-out brown of the walnut.



I'm also working on a non-commissioned banjo. A very long time ago, when I was more interested in exotic woods, I found this fantastic piece of wenge with a phenomenal grain pattern. I'm trying a little bit of a different design for the neck, and I think this one will come out really nicely, if I ever have time to finish it.

Tim's banjo came out well. It sounds excellent - a nice, crisp tone that retains a good degree of thumpiness due to the small f-shaped sound holes. I cut the hell out of my thumb while cutting out the tailpiece, which wasn't great. I have to take the strings off and contour the fingerboard to simulate a little up-bow, due to the fact that the fourth string is buzzing when it's hit hard, but that's not a major operation, and always has to be done - I just thought I'd try to see if i could get away without having to do it. The answer is no. In any event, I'm really happy with the way the oak neck looks, and will definitely be making more oak-necked gourd banjos in the future. So, I'll wrap this one up in the next couple of days, ship it out, and start on the next banjo order. I've been asked to make a giant, fourteen inch tackhead with a short-scale neck and paduak fingerboard. It should be pretty sweet.

Here are a few photos of the banjo that I just finished. Official, high-resolution gallery shots will be up later in the week.

well, i got some work done since this morning. i made and attached the dowel, finished cleaning, leveling, and fashioning sound holes in the gourd, and i managed to put it all together. i mussed up the break angle on the neck somewhat, so had to surgically graft on a shim to one of the dowel holes in the gourd. the piece of gourd shell that i grafted on is very nicely matched, but even so, it will end up covered. one of the more challenging aspects of building a gourd banjo is getting all the geometry right with respect to setting the neck. its much harder than the same process on a banjo with a hoop-shaped pot, as the gourd is completely irregular. thus, you have to calculate everything based on three separate axes, which can be quite difficult, especially for someone as impatient as myself. in any event, here's the product of todays work:

friday is my day off from work, and therefore it's the day that i get most of my banjo making done. today i'm about to cut and attach the dowel stick the neck of tim's banjo and, when it dries - which should be done in a few hours - i'll fit the neck to the gourd. carving the heel of the neck out to match the countours of the gourd is the most time-consuming and frustrating part of the process. here are a couple of shots where you can see the heel countoured-out to match the gourd.