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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.
Hi folks – here’s the third post while we construct our bicentennial banjo. Most of this post focuses on getting the rim turned and finished…
Turning the rim on the lathe.
Once the rim is turned, I glued the overlay on. In this photo the overlay is glued and the clamps removed, and it’s ready to be flush cut on the router table.
Once the overlay is flush cut, I cut the binding slot on the router table. All the chechen binding and ebony/maple purfling in the photo above will be heat bent to the rim and then glued on.
Gluing and taping the binding & purfling into place.
Binding finished, tape removed and everything sanded flush.
Raw brass tension hoops that have been sanded and drilled.
Sanding the rim on the lathe. Once I’ve drilled the rim fastener holes, I put the rim back on the lathe and sand it to 220, with a hand finish-sanding afterwards.
The photos above and below are of the finished rim, sanded, drilled and prepped for a little bit of inlay and then oiling.
Rough-cutting out the profile of the banjo neck and peghead….
After rough-cutting out the profile, I use jigs on the router table to precisely profile the neck.
Gluing the back peghead overlay on, after steam-bending it.
Gluing the wood binding and purfling on. This section (where the 5th string is) requires steam bending the binding, and gluing it with calls and several clamps.
Binding and purfling on…
This month’s batch with profiles cut, peghead shapes roughed out, binding on, and tuner holes drilled. (#200 is on the far left)
Gluing on heel overlays on this month’s batch…
Our incredibly happy lab/retriever Lula with her banjo rim cutoff. Even though she only gets them once a month, she loves them so much that she has learned to wait by the table saw when Jason is trimming rough banjo rims. This one is black walnut, though we seem to notice that she has a preference for maple as they take longer to chew through.
Banjo 200 is well on its way.
Figured one-piece birdseye maple neck (I’ve been saving this board for a while) with the Chechen rosewood rim.The neck blank has been cut out of the billet, squared up, and the truss rod slot has been cut.
We had Chris at Melrose Music make these Chechen rosewood rims up for us. On a side note, we’re working on a new style of rim with him that we’re looking forward to testing out – essentially doing 3-ply rims with a rosewood core in them, hoping to be able to offer these if someone wanted a little more power from one of our softer woods that we love to use (black walnut, mahogany, and cherry in particular).
As far as this rim goes though, Chechen is a wood we use in the shop quite a bit for veneers/overlays (fingerboards, pegheads, rims, etc.) but have only recently started using it for rims. It’s extremely dense and musical.
Banjo 200 is on the far right. The Chechen fingerboard has been slotted and is ready for gluing. A wooden filet has been fit over the truss rod to keep any glue from going into the truss rod slot.
The fingerboard has been located and is ready to be glued onto the neck.
The fingerboard is glued and in place, but not clamped yet.
Fingerboard glued and clamps removed the next day.
Peghead overlays, which were glued on using the same system as the fingerboard, are on.
Side view of the glued-up neck.
Coming up: Ebony/maple decorative purfling, something I’ve only put on a few banjos before. It will be under chechen rosewood binding. I’ve just finished designing the peghead, a nearly exact copy of a turn-of-the-century Cole banjo peghead. We’re still debating on the inlay, but leaning towards columns. I’ll keep snapping photos whenever I remember…
Pharis on the receiving end of planing 180 feet of cedar for a hot tub we’re building (in all our spare time….). Wish us luck – no leaks!!!
The dog is loving all the cedar shavings…. she gets to sleep on them.
Hi folks -
It’s been a busy year and I’ve been waiting until I had some time to make a special, uncommissioned instrument – number 200! Last time I built a commemorative banjo, number 100, I sold it through a retailer but this time I plan to offer it directly for sale off the website. It should be ready in about six weeks.
So far, it’s going to be:
- Figured birdseye maple neck (a special piece I’ve been saving for a little over a year)
- 12″ Chechen rosewood rim
- Chechen fingerboard and overlays, chechen binding
- Lightly aged brass hardware
The rest – tonering, L-shoes, and inlay – I still haven’t decided on yet. The inlay will possibly be based off an early Cole design, and most likely gold mother-of-pearl or brass.
If you’re interested, give me a call at 250-929-7099 or email.
09203 – Claro walnut resonator banjo with wooden tonering and brass hardware
It just so happened that we got to build three resonator banjos together in one batch; it seems like at least a year since I’ve been able to build one. This one was a claro walnut neck and resonator, with our integral Honduran rosewood tonering set on a rock maple rim. The inlay was designed for the customer who requested a sativa vine; the final design was cut out of Tahitian black mother-of-pearl and brass, with a bit of gold mother-of-pearl. The wooden tonering gave this banjo a wonderful warm expressive tone, very well suited for the customer’s playing style. In addition, the lack of a traditional tonering made this an extremely light banjo. I’ve been making resonator banjos with wooden tonerings since I started building, and it was a pleasure to build yet another. The combination of claro walnut and brass hardware made for a very striking instrument.
09204 – 12″ Black walnut with coffee plant inlay
This banjo was for our good friend who happens to run a coffee roasting business…. hence the coffee-themed inlay. It’s one of a pair that he’s commissed – keep an eye out for the other one, a resonator banjo, in a future blog, it will hopefully be done in a few weeks. The first of the pair, this banjo was built and set up specifically for clawhammer style, ie. slightly higher action, stiffer strings, scoop, etc. It had a 25 1/2″ scale length on a claro walnut two-piece neck (the same wood was used for both banjos in the set). A great sounding and playing banjo with one of my favorite aesthetic combinations – black walnut with raw brass hardware.
09208 – Figured maple resonator banjo with wooden tonering, blackened hardware and slotted peghead
Another one of the resonator banjos built in the shop recently. I’ve made plenty of slothead-style necks before, but it was nice to finally be able to combine one with a resonator banjo. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen this combination on a neck before, and I loved the looks of it. The customer wanted to go with a regular fifth string (rather than our normal slotted) on a radiused fingerboard, and his name and state inlayed out of figured maple. This resonator-style banjo also had a wooden tonering set on a rock maple rim, with a figured maple resonator and neck. All the hardware was blackened, with the flange in particular coming out a great matte black. It sounded open and strong with all the volume of a metal tonering banjo, but with a really focused midrange and fewer overtones than I would associate with a traditional flathead-style tonering.
Our newest banjos:
09198 – 11″ Black walnut with Barn Swallow inlay
This banjo was for a family friend of Pharis’ from the Cariboo region. Overall, the customer wanted something light and responsive. We turned the rim to 7/16″ rather than our normal 1/2″, and the nut width and base of the neck were narrower than our standard – the nut width a full 1/8″ and the base of the neck 1/16″. The neck also had an overall lower profile in the carve. We have a real affinity for barn swallows, so we were excited when she decided on a barn swallow inlay on her peghead. All the hardware was lightly aged raw brass. This banjo, with its 11″ Renaissance head and thinner rim was set up with lighter gauge strings and a slightly thinner than normal bridge. It was extremely lively and easy to play – great for someone with a light touch.
09199 – 12″ Black walnut left-handed
200 banjos later and our first lefty! The customer wanted a few different things which we were happy to do, including a slightly different peghead (a version of the J4 but without points) and a Dobson heel. We loved its simplicity and nice combination of options. With the A-scale neck, Romero tonering and goatskin head this banjo was a real player, even though we weren’t left handed and couldn’t spend a couple days playing it as we like to do….
09201 – 11″ Figured maple
Flamed maple + goatskin head + 11″ rim generally make for great sounding banjos, and this one was no exception. The flamed maple gave it volume and power, coupled with a warm but responsive plunkiness we attribute to the goatskin head and the rosewood tonering. The inlay was copied almost directly from a drawing sent in by the customer – our first cacti inlay, out of gold mother-of-pearl and jasperite.
09202 – 12″ Figured maple fretless with Ziricote trim
This customer saw several other black stained figured maple banjos we had built (07111, 08149, 08153) and had a real vision before we even started building. He wanted a banjo that look like it had been “unearthed.” It was an extremely power fretless, with the 12″ rim, Romero tonering, rock maple neck and rim and a Renaissance head (that we stained dark to match the rest of the banjo). All the hardware was nickel-plated but blackened as well, with a buffalo skull peghead inlay and Native American “Hand” symbol inlayed at the fifth.
As of today, we have two new pieces of hardware available!
We’re incredibly excited about this cast bronze banjo wrench. It’s been on our to-do list of custom hardware for quite a while now, and we finally got around to designing it. Inspired by the custom banjo wrenches from turn-of-the-century companies, we wanted to offer a company-designed and built wrench. This new wrench fits on all 5/16″ hex nuts. It also fits on the machine screws that we use to attach our L-shoes.
We also have brand new tuner buttons. These beautiful cast bronze buttons fit on both the peghead and 5th string tuners. Another cosmetic option for tuner buttons, the increased weight the bronze will give to the peghead may also affect the tone – we’re not sure about that though. We’ll keep people posted as we experiment with them.
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