FREIHEIT

Marks' banjo has been added to the gallery. See photos here.

Testing out Mark's new Banjo

Finished, save for the final coats of oil

Another reason to love Ralph Stanley!

Inlay

More Progress:

Sanded the neck down to a glassy-smooth surface, applied some test stain, drilled and reamed peg holes, glued dowel to neck, mapped out f-holes. I took these photos with my phone, so they're not exactly super crisp.

Progress

This is what happens when you don't properly level off the base of a new bridge after cutting it. (takes a minute to load if you've got a slow connection)

Just spent several hours fitting the heel of the neck to the gourd. To be perfectly honest, this is by far my least favorite part of the process. You have to match the exact shape of the gourd vertically, horizontally and with respect to the proper neck pitch. In order to accomplish this, a contour gauge (pictured below) is extremely helpful. Right now the fit is about 95% complete. I'll clean it up tomorrow, and then fit the neck/dowel through the gourd. As always, click the thumbnails for full sized images.


Contour gauge


Measuring the outer shell of the gourd


Heel carved out to match the gourd.


Neck fit about 95% perfectly to gourd. A little more work and this will be done.

The most unpleasant part of the process is cleaning out the gourd. It's full of toxic molds and fine particles that irritate the lungs, both of which take a long time to clean out.

Gourd just after being cut open, note the seed balls and detritus:





After being arduously scraped clean:

Neck shaping is done; dowel stick is cut.

It's hard to tell from the photos, but the figure has come out spectacularly well. I can't wait to see it with stain and oil. Finish sanding won't take place until after assembly is done, but before stain is applied.

I was got to use the laser cutter for the first time. It took a while to get the hang of, but the results are tremendous! This opens up a lot of possibilities.

Here's a quick little video of the marquetry stars i made for Mark's banjo.

nearly finished shaping the neck for marks banjo. fate keeps stepping in every time i settle down to work on this. notwithstanding, should be done with shaping tomorrow, and done with the banjo early next week.

this piece of maple is actually highly figured, though its hard to see in these photos. it will look absolutely incredible once its stained.

to those waiting for banjos -

i was in a bit of a traffic accident recently. nothing serious, but it resulted in a somewhat mangled right arm and, in particular, a nicely sprained right wrist. aside from not being able to play the banjo (farewell clifftop trip!), it is very hard for me to carry out the finery necessary to make my banjos. the accident was a week ago, and i anticipate at least one more week until i can get back into the shop again.

sorry for the delay!

Alabama Joe played on one of my tackheads.

Of the many questions people ask about my banjos, one of the most common is regarding their ability to hold up in high humidity. People have either read a lot about sagging tackhead skins or played inferior instruments - either way, the concern is understandable. While humidity does affect the feel and sound of any banjo with a skin head, mine included, a properly mounted tackhead will hold up and be playable in extreme weather, especially with a set of different sized bridges. Here is a quick little clip of one of my 12" tackheads at 78 degrees and 93% humidity (during the eveniing and between two thunderstorms). The head is a little softer, to be sure, but I'm still using the original short bridge.

4 new black cherry neck blanks just in from indiana

After much experimenting, I finally figured out how to steal Tim's videos of my banjos from youtube and save them as .mov files. The result is that a bunch of them are now hosted directly at jaymoschella.com. Check them out in the listen section!

Unfortunately, I haven't had much time to work on banjos since I finished the last two tackheads. The end of the semester has been very, very busy. I've had a couple of presentations and papers, as well as a final project that entailed researching and cataloging an unprocessed collection of about 60 original civil war photographs. But school finally ends next Tuesday, and then it's back to the workshop - this time to hash out some brass hardware and tension hoops for a new series of banjos with adjustable heads.

Amidst all the stress of full-time work, plus two nights a week in the master's program I'm doing, I've taken to the bracing thrill of collecting 19th century photographic processes. I've mostly been going in for daguerreotypes and ambrotypes - nothing fancy, but I've been looking for portraits with interesting or appealing sitters. Here are a few samples of what I've been picking up: