Tonight I made a recording of Lor Bres de Ladies, from Buckley's Guide for the Banjo (1868). It's played on this gourd. Click the image to hear.

Here is a video - one of many - that Tim Twiss just made using his newest tackhead, which I just sent out to him last week.



I'm going to be posting a lot of his other incredible video clips on the site in the near future.

And while we're on the topic of videos, here's a cool one from Paul Sedgwick's website, which is slowly populating itself with more and more interesting material

I now have a new myspace page for my banjo making. Click the photo to see it. "Add" me!

New item for sale. See the gallery...

John Barr, reenactor with the 2nd Delaware Volunteer Infantry, playing his Jay Moschella banjo.

Important, long-overdue addition to the shop!

new photos in the gallery.

focus-group testing the new product (they seemed to approve)...

1. I like tackhead banjos.

2. This banjo is fantastic.

Here is a mini photo essay I posted on the banjohangout, on the tacking of skin heads


(Click photo below for full size)



In the first photo (top left), you can see that I have taped over the exposed parts of the rim with painters tape. Also note that I have pre-drilled all the tack holes. This allows me to make sure the are all evenly spaced. The holes are barely smaller than the shanks on the tack, so the hold when pushed in, but are not to hard to apply. I use a small mallot to band them in completely. In addition, I have laminated the top of the inner rim with a single, 1/8" thick, .75" wide strip of maple. When the skin tightens up, it can really pull on the rim, sometimes forcing it slightly out of round, especially with a 1/4 inch rim. Nothing is worse than shaping your heel precisely for a snug fit, and then having to redo it completely once the rim shifts!

In the second photo (top right), you can see the glue having been applied. I soak skins for 25 to 30 minutes, and apply the glue 15 minutes before I take the skin out of the water, to allow time to get tacky.

In the third photo (bottom left), you can see that I have rough cut the excess skin. Note that I use two large rubber bands to hold the skin down and to help mitigate wrinkling. Once the rubber bands are on, I hold the side of the rim up to a space heater, and slowly rotate it, allowing even exposure of the sides to heat. Once the sides are dry, I begin to dry the top.

In the final photo (bottom right) I am slicing off the excess skin while it is still slightly moist, and therefore much more pliable. Always use a new blade for this so you dont have to press too hard and slice into the wood of the rim.

A lot of people swear by the practice of leaving the skin out to dry. This works fine, but I am impatient. I have never had a problem drying the skin this way, and it's then ready to use in about an hour. The only important precaution is to make sure you have dried the sides before focusing on the top. That way, when the head starts to contract, It will already be nicely anchored, otherwise it will pull the wet skin up from under the tacks, and tear, ruining your head. Wait to do your final skin trimming until everything is nice and dry, as the slice-line can move noticeably once the skin shrinks.

I hope people find this helpful. I don't want to clutter up the hangout - most everything I post here is posted in the banjo building blog on my website. I may just keep posting there instead, so definitely bookmark it if you're interested in making tackheads.

tackhead minstrel banjos made to order
www.jaymoschella.com

I sanded off all the stain that I put on yesterday because I didn't like the way it came out and I didn't like the color. I mixed some new dye, and now it looks a lot better.



I've been feeling pretty sick for the past couple days. I think I just need to rest, so I'm going to set this project aside for a bit (I hope). In any event, it's amazing how much faster a banjo comes along when you don't have to design it from scratch, but can just copy it.

Here's a copy of Tim's banjo that I'm making for myself. It's got a few little differences here and there, but will basically be the same banjo.

Here is my meager attempt at playing Ethiopian Cracovienne on the new banjo. I recorded it through the tiny built-in macbook mic, so it's definitely not capturing the full spectrum of sound, but I thought people might be interested.

new banjo is now officially up in the gallery.

It's done. This banjo has a distinct, extremely loud, extremely clear tone. The maple neck is solid, smooth as glass, and very easy to play. My only regret is that I made the fifth-string peg slightly too close to the fourth. It doesn't buzz or hit the string at all, but you can just barely notice it with your right thumb when playing. I will either wind it the other way, or make a couple bridges with the space between the fifth and fourth string slightly compensated. It's actually not really bad at all, and in fact the appearance may be the thing that bugs me the most, but as a builder, it inevitably rubs my OCD tendencies the wrong way. Anyhow, click for full size.

Here I have cut the holes in the rim for the dowel, achieved a snug fit between the heel and rim and, in the bottom two shots, I have glued the neck onto the dowel stick. I use a straight edge clamped to the fingerboard area to assure that everything stays aligned while the glue is drying.

The rim has been stained. Here it is cozied up to the neck. I now have to mate the heel to the pot, cut and attach the dowel stick, and fit it through the rim.

Bending the reinforcing band that will fit inside the rim. Disregard the Kermit the Frog oven mitt (if you are planning to continue respecting me).

The new neck is now basically finished. It looks less dark and shows more figure in better lighting.

Had a great banjo weekend. On Saturday I went with a couple friends to Paul's studio. His brother, who is also gourd instrument maker, was there. It was quite a scene - the wood stove burning in the corner while we crowded into the shop, snow piled up just outside the glass doors, and instruments of every kind coming down off the shelves - akontings, didgeridoos made of everything from snake gourds to PVC pipe, banjos, hand drums, kora, xalam. I was happy to see Paul's Hartel, which I hadn't known about, and good times were had all around.

Otherwise, I have been busy with school and work for the past week or so, so Tim's banjo has been coming a little slowly. I did get a chance to make two new sets of bones today. I will now be selling bones to those who want them. They will be $15 per pair, or $30 for a set of four.

I have decided that, once Tim's banjo is done, I am going to focus all my efforts on machining hardware and rolling rims in order to start making minstrel banjos with adjustable heads. My first one is going to be a Boucher copy.

The new banjo has begun.

Well, today I went out to my friend Sage's workshop to surface a half dozen neck blanks. He's got a really cool shop where he does carpentry and builds extremely unusual (and great sounding) travel guitars. It snowed here in Boston last night, but there was a little wood stove inside the shop, so that helped.

Here's one of the amazing guitars



And here's a 3-D repeating router he built (note the hand carving he made using it)

Just finished another one - this time based on the banjo I just shipped to Rick. It was simply too nice a banjo to resist, so now I have my own. It's a little fancier, so it took a little longer to build. Heres a shot of the tailpiece before and after the inlay was set.



And here are the photos of the banjo itself.

It seems that people are always contacting me and asking if I can build banjos with adjustable heads and hardware. Well, the answer is yes, I can. However, I am not building them right now. I haven't gotten tackheads out of my system yet, but will be turning to banjos with hardware very soon, and plan to be building and selling such instruments by this summer. I am in the process of retooling my shop a bit, and also thinking about different hardware designs. I won't be doing any casting, but will instead by machining parts out of brass and steel. I'll be building a few for myself, first, and then they'll hit the market.

Also, I updated the "listen" section with a couple new tunes from Tim Twiss - Sugar in De' Gourd, and Ethiopian Cracovienne. They are fantastic recordings, so check them out when you can.

Click image for full size.

I have finally succeeded in making a neck that looks exactly like my oak floor.

Currently waiting for a couple new projects to begin, so I decided to start a new banjo, for myself. It will be a copy, more or less, of the banjo order I just completed, with maybe a few differences in the details.



Click on the above photo for a giant view of what my neck blanks look like just before shaping starts.

project for today: new storage rack for neck blanks

rick's banjo done, save for final finishing, set up, etc. now its on to making bridges for the next couple days...

I am happy to report that I may have (finally) secured a pretty good source for quarter-sawn curly sugar maple 3 x 3 neck blanks. Though I don't want to give anything away, I'll just say that the lumber comes from a business that requires high quality maple blanks, but cannot use any curly maple. Bonus points to anyone who can guess what this company makes (hint: it's more obvious than you might think). Anyhow, the first shipment of blanks will arrive on Friday. I'll need to let them acclimate for a while, and then will work on a neck or two from the batch to test out the quality. Banjos made from these blanks will be about $30 more expensive than my normal banjos, as straight-grained, highly figured 12/4 maple boards cut dead on the quarter aren't exactly going for bargain basement prices.

I've fancied up the graphics on the website. There's still a lot of work to be done, but o far I've finished the new main graphic on the front page, and most of the "Listen" section. Let me know what you think. Web page stuff takes forever.

more progress on rick's neck. final finishing done, along with a coat of stain that i may or may not keep. click for full size...

(image by Ulf Jagfors)

Here is a recording of Paul playing a song on one of his akontings yesterday. Absolutely incredible.

Here are some recordings that Paul made on the new 14" tackhead today.

Old Dan Tucker

Lucy Long Polka

Walk Into de Parlor Jig Medley

rick's oak neck, after rough shaping.



the finery of final shaping can be pretty time consuming, and that's where this neck is at right now. as may or may not be visible in this photo, the rays in this piece of wood are exceptional. i am suddenly making all of my necks out of oak - and i just got a shipment of new oak blanks. i may have secured a large order of cherry neck blanks to be delivered late in the spring, so things might change then. somehow i feel a lot better about working with domestic hardwoods, and most of the blanks i am using now have been harvested by very sustainable means.

here are the six pieces of oak in my front hall

new banjo in the gallery

the skin is drying on this banjo. i had a disaster last night, where i dried the surface faster than the sides, which caused the head to tear along the tacks, forcing me to do it again today. above you can see the head as it looks just after it is tacked on, then again after the skin has been rough trimmed and dried slightly. the rubber bands help keep the edges of the skin from getting wrinkled during drying. on the right, you can see the tailpiece, copied from an instrument on the banjo sightings database.

i should get to shaping rick's banjo neck tonight. you'll notice that many of the recent photos of my banjos in progress are not taken in the workshop. its wintertime, which means the workspace is a little colder than normal, so i've been doing most of the non-dusty work inside my apartment.

new banjo almost done.

winter wonderland: not so beautiful, really

one more update for the night

A new banjo is born

this clip is from a while back. it shows tim twiss - faithful customer, correspondent and minstrel virtuoso at the antietem early banjo gathering contest, wielding the gourd banjo we came up with last spring. if you scroll down to my blog entries from march, you can see this gourd banjo when it was still a little bay banjo - little more tha a block of wood with the outline of a neck drawn on it.

Well, John Barr's banjo is just about wrapped up. You can see the final photos in the gallery, 5th from the left. It's a real nice one - real nice, indeed.

Anyhow, the first heavy snows are falling something awful outside the banjo factory here in Jamaica Plain. Happy holidays. This is the time of year when your faithful banjo maker finds himself in an annual winter melancholy. Inevitably due, if nothing else, to the short, cold, and dark New England days of December, the only cure seems to be a strict course of laying on the floor and listening to the carters until the sun starts shining again in April.

Meanwhile, the workshop is a little bit colder, and I can't sit outside on the front step carving away at my banjo necks, as I am wont to do under friendlier climates. But the work is still peaceful, and the banjos still roll off the line as true to form as ever. Rick's is next up on the bench along with a little number I've been working on for myself.

well, johns banjo is pretty much wrapped up. im going to have to take it apart in order to get the final coats of finish on. i think i'll also make a more interesting tailpiece.
this banjo sounds absolutely fantastic. the tone is perfectly balanced between thumpiness and kick. or, to use non-vague terms: the lows and the highs are good. the neck is made out of a piece of ash from indiana with a scale length of 26.5" and the pot is made from a modern, 12" maple rim. as always, click for full (huge) size.

getting very close to the end with this banjo. looking great so far...

johns banjo is coming along. will likely assemble tomorrow, save for skin. its a real beauty. click on the thumbnail to see.

Inlay work (click for full size):

johns banjo is underway, as is darius's second banjo order, which he may or may not opt to keep. anyhow, john is a civil war reenactor, and he also wanted an instrument he could learn on. i settled on using incised frets, as that solution is both historically appropriate, aesthetically pleasing, and still very functional. the neck is made from a piece of ash. click to see full size.




darius wanted a gourd banjo with an oak neck much like the last gourd i made. this one is stained just slightly darker, but you can still see the grain very nicely (the photo makes it look darker than it actually is, so some detail is lost here). click to see full size.

still alive!

working on a gourd order right now, and have two tackheads waiting to be started. busy, busy, busy. getting a masters degree actually takes time and effort. who could have predicted?

the shop has been quiet in august. i am slowly working on a banjo for darius, but also trying to figure out the future of my workspace and whether/where i will be moving. however, if anyone is interested in purchasing an instrument without waiting, the wenge gourd banjo is up on ebay right now (item no. 330157336001).

who would guess that TWO gourd banjo makers would end up living within a mile of one another? i guess anything is possible... in jamaica plain. anyways, i paid my first visit to paul sedgewicks house and studio today. its a mind-blowingly inspirational place. a) its a workspace that is actually nice. b) the banjos and other gourd instruments there are wonderful. c) AKONTINGS!!!

paul seems like a great guy, and it was fun to talk to him and hear him play the banjos and akontings. i was really inspired by some of the different, and more 'primitive' designs for banjos i saw there, and i think i am really going to have to start experimenting with some new forms now. and of course, the akontings were positively mesmerizing. this voyage had a two-fold effect. one, it reminded me of why i love the banjo, and why i love gourd banjos in particular. two, it reminded me og how awesome jamaica plain is.

i have been in the midst of looking for a new apartment and workspace, and therefore havent really had much time to work on banjos of late. but work should start back up as soon as all this uncertainty is resolved.

new gourd banjo is up. its god a dark oak neck with some nice medullary rays, and a large, thumping gourd. it looks really nice, and plays well.

newest gourd banjo is all but done. tomorrow im going to turn my own custom pegs, file the nut blank, make the tailpiece, then string it up and play it. its looking great right now assembled and waiting for the final touches.

new oak neck. should be done by saturday. i love working with oak. its really got such a rustic character, and is very easy to shape. click the thumbnail for full size...

new gourd banjo is up in the gallery, front and center. check it out.

new gourd banjo almost done, and should be finished this afternoon. this one has a walnut neck, and an exquisite wenge fingerboard with a very distinct, beautiful grain swirling patter that i integrated into the shape of the neck itself. the gourd is on the larger side, and quite eccentric, such that the cut i made for the head results, because of the gourds shape, in a non-round surface. this sort of makes it look as though the dowel is not centered, but it actually is running through the middle of the gourd. something different, i suppose. i would love to keep this one, but it is going to be up for sale. the bills dont pay themselves.

as always, click the thumbnail for larger images...