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We’ve decided to sell two personal banjos. We’d love to see them go to a great home – and with these banjos you won’t have to wait a year for a new one. Please give us an email or call at (250) 929-7099 for prices and more info.
#0437 – Santos Mahogany resonator banjo. For more photos and info, click here.
From Jason: I decided to let go of one the first bluegrass banjos I made for myself. It’s been in my collection for a while – just over six years – and has been my primary player at every bluegrass gig I’ve played. It has some light dings and scratches throughout as you would expect. The frets have all been milled recently, all the parts cleaned and the head replaced with a new Huber head. It’s a great sounding and easy playing banjo. Spikes installed at 7, 9 and 10. It’s set up with an 11/16″ submerged maple bridge; the nut width is 1 5/16″ (a full 1/8″ wider than standard Gibson bluegrass banjos). Comes with a TKL hardshell case that does show a bit of wear. I’m sorry to see it go, but I decided to make a new one for myself this summer and would like to see this banjo go to a good home…
#10230 – 10″ Black walnut banjo ukelele – for more info and photos, click here.
A freshly made banjo tenor ukelele. Strung up with Aquila nylgut ukelele strings, this is a special little instrument. We hand cut and shaped the brass 4-string tailpiece, as well as brass star-shaped washers inside the rim. Continuing with the star theme, it has cast bronze star L-shoes, and in the peghead we inlayed graduated stars of amboyna burl, maple burl, rosewood and ebony. The geared violin tuners work really easily and look great. It’s a very sweet sounding banjo. And for those of you who are looking to play some clawhammer ukelele, it has a scoop as well.
 Jason with a James Ashborn banjo Earlier this year we had a very kind invitation from Hank Schwartz to visit his home and his amazing banjo collection, just south of San Francisco. It was quite an experience, with his collection ranging from antebellum curiosities to late 1800’s one-offs by unknown makers to the most ornate Fairbanks and Coles. And of course, several James Ashborns…..
We left there with a deep gratitude to Hank for the time we spent with him, and a whole lot of exciting ideas. Once home, Jason set to work building the banjo he’d been constructing in his head for months, adding on some inspiration from the experience of being able to examine such a varied and beautiful collection of banjos first hand.
(click on each image to view a larger version)
Jason’s initial ideas for this banjo were that he wanted a lightly built instrument, meant to be strung up with nylon strings, intended for lower tunings, and an overall dark look. For woods we went with some beautiful marbled claro walnut; 25.5″ scale length, flush frets, with a 12″ rim.
The rim was thin, 1/4″ single ply claro walnut. Dobson tonering (built by Bill Rickard). Single piece claro walnut neck, and figured claro walnut trim.
A new heel shape, inspired by some traditional guitar heel shapes – shorter and wider than our regular heel shape. You can just see the ends of the carves on either side of the base of the neck, and the slight curve in the neck profile where the scoop is.
Our first banjo with a longer backstrap. The banjo has bloodwood veneers under all the figured walnut trim. We used Pegheds tuners for the first time on this banjo – for both look and function they work great….
Our typical fifth string carve, and another view of the claro neck.
Figured claro walnut overlays. The inlay is Arts & Crafts inspired, with bloodwood, figured claro and ebony fans at the 1st and 12th frets. The flush frets are filled with bloodwood.
A new take on our J3 peghead shape, where the sides have a curved contour (rather than straight edges).
We’ve been carving our necks at the base, above the heel, where the neck meets the tension hoop, since the first banjo out of the Romero workshop. Here we’ve taken that same carve and sharpened it.
The scoop, showing the two-piece fingerboard of ebony and figured black walnut, with the bloodwood veneers. The idea behind the two-piece fingerboard was a practical design – we wanted to be able to show black walnut in the scoop, but had to also make sure that the truss rod was covered.
Inspired by minstrel banjo neck styles, the sides/top profile of the neck have a subtle decorative inverted carve where the scoop ends.
Brand new cast bronze rim fasteners. Definitely inspired by the variety on the early banjos in Hank Schwartz’s collection, we’re calling these our “Daisy” shoes. All the hardware is raw brass or bronze, and lightly aged.
Another view of the new L-shoes and lightly aged hardware (along with our custom tulip nuts and tension hoop).
We hand cut brass washers for the inside of the rim, mimicking the shape of the rim fasteners to make small daisy-shaped washers. These washers were out of thicker than normal brass.
A closer view of the daisy washers. You can also see the new 3-hole washer that connects the back two rim fasteners and the coordinator rod. These new washers will be included on every Romero banjo from now on… We love the look of it, and it also allows the washer that we normally use at the end of the coordinator rod to be fixed on the inside of every rim.
The finished banjo has a stained goatskin head, Savarez heavy tension nylon guitar strings, Romero 5-hole 3-foot bridge, cast bronze tailpiece.
This post is a bit late coming out – our apologies it’s taken a while, it’s been a zoo around here in the workshop and in life. We’re having a great time, that’s for sure!
February brought us some very exciting banjos, including a chance for Jason to build a new banjo for himself. We’ll talk more about that new banjo separately in another blog shortly… In the meantime though, here are our newest batch of banjos.
10216 – 11″ Ebonized maple rim and black walnut neck
A great combination of simplicity with an overall badass look. Blackened hardware, ebonized rim, dark stained skin. It was really nice to build a banjo with no inlay, letting the hardware and wood speak for themselves (not that we don’t love doing inlay!). It had a great sound, a combination our Romero tonering with the skin head, and set up to play very easily with a ton of volume.
10217 – 11″ Chechen rim and cherry neck
This was built for a friend of ours on his 60th birthday. He wanted a simple 11″, based off an earlier personal banjo we built, number 09185. A similar sounding banjo to the fretless, with the Romero tonering, but on the extremely dense chechen rim, giving for a warm, focused and very responsive banjo.
10218 – 12″ Black walnut
Made for a good friend, a wonderful fiddler, who wanted a new instrument in her life. Her only specifications were the cat inlay, dark woods and 12″ rim, so we took black walnut and stained it a shade darker for both the neck and rim to bring together this lovely banjo. The neck was profiled slightly smaller than a typical banjo from our workshop – something we offer for players who like the feel of a smaller neck. The cat inlay was inspired by early art nouveau cat images. A warm and alive banjo, with a wonderful low end, set up with slightly lighter gauge strings and lower action for her playing style.
10219 – 11″ Chechen rim and cherry neck
This banjo was made for a customer who wanted the focused sound of an 11″ rim with a tubaphone tonering set on the dense wood, chechen. When fingerpicked, this banjo had the power of a bluegrass style banjo, but because of the setup could be played and would respond well to a number of different attacks. A beekeeper, the customer wanted inlay that tied in fireweed (willowherb), bees, traditional beehives, a bee-friendly tree and a Dutch dathe bee smoker. We designed up a beautiful nouveau-inspired fireweed with honeybees flying in the traditional fingerboard markers up to the peghead, where the gradually smaller sized bee swarm wrapped around to the tree and hives on the back of the peghead.
Hi folks -
We’re back from a great tour from San Francisco to Victoria with our old time stringband The Haints and a very special guest Carl Jones. What a wonderful time was had – thank you to all the folks who came out, the incredible people who helped us put on the shows and fed us delicious food and gave us soft beds to sleep in. Carl Jones was a real treat to play music with – his songwriting and musicianship are so very inspiring. There are some videos up on youtube.com of a few shows from this tour.
In the meantime though, we’re just getting a chance to post the banjos that we shipped out right before we left on tour (and one gourd that we built back in December).
Flush Fret Gourd
A gourd banjo with maple flush frets, cherry neck, and chechen trim. The customer also wanted a small brass cap over the end of the dowel stick to protect it from any damage. It was fun to get build a gourd again, it had been a while.
09211 – 11″ Cherry Banjeaurine
An 11″ cherry rim and neck, with a short 19 5/8″ banjeaurine scale. Aged brass hardware, copper and brass inlay, and chechen trim rounded out this little banjo. It was the first banjeaurine we’ve had a chance to make, and the short scale length made for a much tighter sound as expected. The radiused fingerboard also made this a really fun to build and play banjo. The customer had several banjeaurines already and was very happy with how this one turned out – we’d love to build more of these.
09214 – 12″ Claro Walnut
The customer wanted a classically beautiful banjo. He sent on some 30+ year old Brazilian rosewood which we were more than happy to use, with enough to do all the trim – fingerboard, peghead, heel and potcaps – of the darkly beautiful wood. The claro walnut bent rim and one-piece neck, which is fast becoming one of our favorite woods to use, complemented the darkness of the Brazilian. We drew up an inlay pattern based off an early Elite banjo with some influences from a Broadway, all out of gold mother-of-pearl. Lightly aged raw brass and bronze hardware, Honduran rosewood tonering, and a dark stained skin rounded it out. The banjo sounded warm and round, very responsive. Set up for clawhammer style playing.
09212 – 12″ Black Walnut
12″ Black walnut rim and neck with pau ferro trim and raw brass hardware. This customer visited our shop before we started the building process and saw some large boards of pau ferro, or Bolivian rosewood, and fell in love with the grainlines. Having already decided on black walnut she decided that the brown on brown tones were exactly what she was looking for. She sent on a beautiful drawing of her peghead design, but was express in wanting it in muted tones, which matched beautifully with the brown towns of the wood. You can see the original drawing and the finished inlay below. The tone was similar to the 12″ claro walnut banjo above, round, woody and open sounding with plenty of volume.
Hi folks -
It’s been an incredibly busy year so far, and shows not many signs of slowing down yet. We’re heading down to California shortly, a two-week mini northwest tour with The Haints. Really looking forward to all the shows, especially the Portland Old Time Gathering.
More than all that though, we’re looking forward to a quieter spring and some time to develop new ideas we have rattling around in our heads. Aside from needing to make myself a couple new personal banjos, we’re excited about experimenting with a few things:
- rosewood core rims. We just got our first batch of these in from Melrose Music. I had the idea about 6 months ago about wanting to put a rosewood core in the centre of a 3-ply rim, with softer woods like mahogany, cherry and black walnut. The idea is that is a person really liked the look of these woods but was hoping to get the power that usually comes with a maple or solid rosewood banjo, that the rosewood core would be a good compromise. I’m not making any sound claims yet as I haven’t had time to experiment – even so I imagine it’s going to be hard to describe, but is another option to help us get the exact tone and look that someone is hoping for. We’ll keep you posted.
- a new resonator attachment system, using magnets!! If it all works out, these powerful magnets will be used to essentially have a pop-on resonator but without any attachment hardware.
- a baritone and a tenor ukelele
- a new close-backed wood-topped banjo, similar to what we’ve built before but with a removable closed back
- a 13″ guitar banjo is in the works as well
- new t-shirt ideas! We’ve got a couple limited edition shirt ideas going, where we only print 24 or so of each. They’ll be a little, well, different…
We’ve got a new tailpiece just about to arrive in the shop, and another couple L-shoes as well. There’s another tailpiece in the works too, and more L-shoes too! Pictures to come soon.
Happy new year to you all -
Jason and Pharis
09209 – 11″ Maple fretless with evening sky inlay
Price-wise, if we were to offer a student model banjo, this would be it. Without many of the numerous upgrades that we offer, this banjo was pretty stripped down, but in a good way. The only upgrade was a Romero tailpiece and a skin head, and the small amount of inlay on the fingerboard. It really sounded and played great; a beautifully simple fretless.
09210 – 12″ Figured maple with Day to Night inlay and rosewood binding
A very powerful banjo. Our tonering (solid brass seated on Honduran rosewood) combined with the 12″ figured rock maple rim, made for a loud banjo with excessive overtones, especially with the goatskin head. Beautiful rosewood binding really complemented the warm tone on the stained maple. The inlay is one of our most popular patterns, the Day to Night (with a small Saturn at the 12th fret).
09213 – 12″ Black walnut with iridescent nickel hardware and crow-themed inlay
The customer wanted a crow-themed banjo that reflected the dark nature of his favorite corvids. So to do this, we stained black walnut (something we haven’t done before), and specialty aged all the hardware after we’d had it nickel-plated. We used one of our blackening methods, a particular technique, that gives a multi-colored iridescence similar to a crow’s feathers. The peghead inlay was a dancing crow of black Tahitian mother-of-pearl, with crow footprints in the scoop (also black mother-of-pearl). Our tonering over black walnut with a fyberskin head combined for a very loud banjo with a really strong mid-range I attribute mostly to the walnut rim and the fyberskin head. The overtones were nice and mild.
Hi folks – here’s the last post while building banjo 200…. In this one we’ll show putting the rim together, the skin head on, and the final assembled banjo. Thank you so much to all of you who have been enjoying the posts. We’ll try to do more things like this in the future….
The new owner in Virginia has already received banjo 200 and is a happy customer…
The photos above and below show carefully putting on all the rim fasteners (lightly aged brass/bronze hardware).
The rim with all the rim fasteners on.
Aged hardware and ebony tuners buttons on blackened nickel tuners in the foreground…. in the background Jason is just putting the flesh hoop over the stained and soaked goatskin head.
Once the flesh hoop is on about 3/16″ below the top of the tonering, the skin is carefully pulled up through the tension hoop.
Setting the tension hoop on evenly and pulling any creases or slack in the goatskin off of the flesh hoop.
Putting all the hooks and nuts on. Jason generally likes to put the front two and back two hooks on first, making sure the tension hoop is aligned properly over the rim fasteners, and then going on to the other hooks. The newly installed skin will then dry for two days in our dry room. Once dry, we’ll bring it in and out of the dry room to acclimate it to different moisture levels as we’re tightening it. This hopefully helps to stabilize the skin for a variety of climates.
An almost completely assembled banjo. The skin head has been trimmed and tightened. The neck and coordinator rod are assembled (sorry we don’t have any pictures of the actual assembly – we forgot to take them!).
The finished banjo! For more pictures and sound clips go to our website at www.romerobanjos.com/09200/09200.html
In this post the neck is stained and the neck and rim oiled….
Staining the neck, carefully applying it so as not to hit the purfling. I wanted to stain the neck to blend in well with the dark color of the chechen, and the stain does help bring out the figure and grain of the maple more.
Carve of the neck and the dowelstick, both stained and ready for oil.
Oiling the rim, one of several hand-applied coats where I’m vigorously working the penetrating oil into the rim.
The neck with the first coat of penetrating oil on it.
The rim, 8 coats of oil later….
The dryroom with this month’s batch resting. #200’s rim is on the lower left, and hasn’t been assembled yet.
The peghead and upper fingerboard inlay, temporarily glued on and ready to be inlayed.
The photos above and below show the design inlayed and glued into place, but not filled or sanded yet.
Once the inlay is filled and sanded, frets are installed. We put the gold EVO frets on this banjo, they’re great quality and will go well with the rest of the brass & bronze hardware. The scoop also has an additional small “thumb scoop” that Jason’s found to be really useful for playing at the top of the scoop.
Pretty much everything in the shop is shaped by hand – you won’t find any CNC machines here…. All necks are shaped and carved individually. The figure on this birdseye maple neck is incredible (the next post will have photos of oiling and finishing where the figure will really come out).
Rasping the heel shape…
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And in other news…
It’s exciting to be creating new hardware, and the newest part of the line-up will be a 5-string tailpiece. This is the wooden model that will be used for the bronze casting. We’re hoping to have these tailpieces available in a month or so….
While we’re mostly just a two-person shop, once a year our dear friend Michael comes up to help us out for a few weeks. He’s a wonderful musician, square dance caller and community organizer, and his visits always mean some square dances and old time fiddle workshops for the lucky folks around here. Lucky him though, here he gets to mark and drill tension hoops and get us set up for the next six months.
Once the peghead has been rough-cut and spindle-sanded to shape, Jason’s using the file to get the sharp angles. This is a new peghead shape, a direct copy from an early Cole banjo.
Removing dust and glue away from the fret slots to get the neck ready for inlay and frets. (Jason’s middle finger on his left hand is recovering from an awkward surgery to remove a piece of glass that had worked its way into his finger to just above the bone, and, of all the places, was digging in right where the string pushes when you fret. The surgeons “think they got it”… so Jason’s been working on new banjo tunings that work well without the middle finger.)
This month’s batch, with scoops and inlay finished (except for #200 on the left – inlay still to come). The ends of the necks have been roughly shaped to fit the rims.
This month’s batch sitting safely in the dryroom.
Getting ready to inlay #200. The design is finished, based off one of our favorite styles, art nouveau. The materials are brass, copper, sea snail and reconstituted malachite.
The inlay pattern for the flower petals, cut out and glued onto the sea snail.
One of our three cats, Pedro, finding another awkward place to sit while Pharis cuts out the inlay.
Placing and filing the inlay.
Most of the pieces in place for the peghead and upper fret inlay… the scoop, back of the peghead and the rim will all be inlayed as well.
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