We are four members of the Adirondack woodturners Association  in upstste New York near Albany and we are Hangout members.  We are woodturners --we turn wood on a lathe.  Banjo rims and resonators can be  made on the lathe and therefore pose no real problem.  We have decided to gather together at my shop once per week and each of us will build a banjo.  We have gathered the wood, sepele , mahogany, and maple for the neck, cherry, maple, for the rims, and the search for  material for the resonators is ongoing.

So far we have discussed the direction we will proceed, cut the segments for the rims, and have ulued up the segments (6) for each of three rings.  The rings have been planned, sanded flat on both sides,  and are ready to be glued.  They were sanded on a Ryobi drum sander.  After gluing they will be turned for a one piece flange.

It is my intention to keep a running description here of our progress and procedures.

The segments for these rings were cut on a tablesaw with the sled shown below, glued together in groups of three, each group of three was adjusted on a disc sander and two groups of three were glued together to form a ring.  All three rings were planed and sanded to be glued together.

Shown also , are two views of a banjo I made previously by these methods. 

Enjoy and if I can be of help to anyone making a banjo, please don't hesitate to ask questions.  It is a great and satisfying adventure.

ken

Lovely work! Please keep posting pics.

About your math - you are proposing making 4 banjos from 3 rims?  But I appreciate being kept informed of your progress. Personally I couldn't build a toothpick , even from blueprints when it comes to woodworking. LOL

the resonator looks really nice.

Man, I wish I lived close by you all.  I would love to get in on this!  Enjoy my woodturning friends!

Keep it going.  This looks fascinating,  and the banjos look great!

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Originally posted by mtnpckr

About your math - you are proposing making 4 banjos from 3 rims?  But I appreciate being kept informed of your progress. Personally I couldn't build a toothpick , even from blueprints when it comes to woodworking. LOL

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He never stated they were making 4 banjos from 3 rims. He did mention about making a rim from 3 block rings or segmented rings to be glued up in order to make 1 rim. You may have mistook the (3 rings) for rims

Tim

Great work!! I love that resonator.

Tim

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Originally posted by chickenpickin

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Originally posted by mtnpckr

About your math - you are proposing making 4 banjos from 3 rims?  But I appreciate being kept informed of your progress. Personally I couldn't build a toothpick , even from blueprints when it comes to woodworking. LOL

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He never stated they were making 4 banjos from 3 rims. He did mention about making a rim from 3 block rings or segmented rings to be glued up in order to make 1 rim. You may have mistook the (3 rings) for rims

Tim

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 Please reread the subject before you take issue with my post.

On another recent thread I learned that it is possible( and has been done) to turn two necks on a lathe and split them apart on the center line (fretboard). What a "pure" woodturnin' build that would be.

oh,oh,oh,... and "Moon bridges" turned all four at once.

okay, much as i hate to admit a mistake, at least I waited til November to make mine this year, now I just have to make it through Dec.  I did read rings as rims, damn speed reading training anyway. LOL

The nice thing about a resonator made this way is the total control one has in regard to the design.  In this case the sides are maple and bubinga segments with veneer lines between each segment of the alternative wood.  One could do almost anything on the sides in terms of segmentation.

The back is of bookmatched birdseye maple.  This too could be segmented in an endless variety of ways.

The rims could also be embellished with more than three rings and much fancier segments and veneers between the rings.  It is interesting to think up ways to make interesting patterns.

Do a good turn!

ken

Love that Bird's Eye maple resonator!

Bill Porter

The banjo pictured is one of two sisters identical except one is a flattop as in the pic and the other is an archtop.

Everyone loves the resonator.  I should describe the process!

ken

Well, we four met again today and cut necks from sepele.  Ran the tension rod slot down the middle, and glued on ears.  We also cut more rim ring blanks and glued them up.  We will be running the rings through the sander this Tuesday and they will be ready for gluing.

We chatted about the turning process and jam chucking and we discussed resonator design.

Everyone is looking for resonator back material.

We have only met twice and we have 4 banjos well under way and somewhat ahead of schedule.

do a good turn

ken

Too cool..

Greg

Ken,

I love what you are doing, and when I saw your first posts I thought you were using indigenous wood but then I read on.

I'm a little sad that you are using woods like sapele and mahogany - anybody can turn a resonator out of something like that.  There you are in (near) the Adirondacks, which has a magnificent sustainable hardwood forest and you're using exotic tropical hardwood.

Why don't you use something from your own back yard and make a point for your woodturner's guild and get real?

I intend to start turning resonators with a back turned from the solid and a segmented or bent rim.  My intention is to use maple and cherry crotchwood and burls that I collect locally.  I have big pieces of Honduras mahogany 24 inches wide and 4 inches thick, that you would love - I got from the pattern shop at Corning Glass, but I won't use it for resonators - no way, no how.

Fixtures and DeStaCo clamps go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Bill Porter

Well here you are!  First rim of three rings of six segmented American Black Cherry with a tone ring of Bubinga and a 1/4 inch accent of mahogany.  Other rims I have made are of cherry only.  We are working on two other cherry and one maple--all from the great Adirondack Forest.

Necks will be of mahogany, sepele, and one of figured Maple.

This rim is NOT one of the four banjos mentioned above, but rather for an open back which will be my practice banjo--lighter in weight  etc.

The rim will have a clear head I think!   I am partial to bubinga as trim

The resonators will also be local wood from the Adirondacks but figured if we can find something worthy.

We are having fun!

ken

oops! where did the pic go??

Hi ken , Nice looking project, I was just curious where are you guys located ? I,m about 25 miles southeast of Albany where the Taconic Parkway meets theThruway. I assume you are somewhat north of Albany. Steve

Steve
We are members of the northeast woodworkers association www.woodworker.org.
We have a shop in Cohoes , NY just off rte 9 in Clifton Park.

We are often there, but we are building these banjos in my shop which is in Valley FAlls, NY which is about 40 minutes north of Albany. Not actually that far from you.

ken

Here is the rig for the tablesaw to cut segments for the edge of the resonator.  The resonator will have an edge of two rings of different woods, maybe with veneer between segments.  There will be 16 segments in each ring.

The angle is 11.5 degrees on each segment.  formula is 360 /nr of segments divided by 2 equals the angle on each segment.  The long edge of each segment is 2 7/8 inches and the width is 1 3/8 inches and the thickness is whatever you want .  These numbers were determined by making a full size drawing.

The pic is of the first trial run to test the joints cut by the rig.  These were perfect as you can see.

The rig is a piece of plywood with two maple runners beneath it in the saw mitre slots.  The dark brown board is 1 inch plus thick and swings on a drywall screw to the right.  The first run is made after the angle is determined with the brown board hot glued TEMPORARILY in place.  If the joints are not good, it is easily removed and reset.  When the joints work (and they did here first time, more hot glue is added along the edge, and one more sheet rock screw is added at the left.  The clamp holds a movable length stop made from a cut off.

Today we put six glued up rings through the planer and the ryobi drum sander and they are ready to be glued into two three ring stacks for rims.  We will take the rims to the gentleman who makes our bandsaw blades and have him weld up a bandsaw blade running through three such rim glue-ups.  This bandsaw blade will then be placed on the bandsaw and used to cut out the center of the three rim blanks.  The blade will then be removed from the saw and broken at the weld.  The blanks (3) will be removed from the blade.  Another blade will be installed and used to cut the outside of the rim to round.

Then these blanks will be turned on the lathe one at a time to produce three rims.  They will each be turned to match their respective tone ring and one piece flange.

They will each be held on the lathe by fixing them to a faceplate holding a glued sandwich of plywood and underlayment of 15 inch diameter.  They will be fixed to this faceplate plywood combination with Hot Melt Glue and turned as follows.

1.  The top of the rim is fixed to the faceplate plywood structure with hot glue and the rime will be fitted to the one piece flange.  Then the rim will be removed from the faceplate plywood structure and placed into a jamb chuck such that the top of the rim can be fitted to the tone ring.  Sanding will be to 220 grit and sanding sealer applied.

The sanding sealer is 1/2 Sherwin Williams sanding sealer and 1/2 real turpentine.  This mix will last forever in a jar with a lid on a workbench.  It is wonderful stuff.

I am trying to go into detail for any who are interested in our process.  The use of Hot melt glue to hold things on the lathe might not be well known outside the turning world.  Jam chucking as well is a very useful way to hold things and requires nothing more than some wood and a faceplate.  Yes we have chucks, but jam chucking is easier faster and more accurate.

I will try to get some pics of the bandsawing , the hot melt glue holding and of the jam chucking when we do these things.

do a good turn

ken

Edited by - ken61 on 11/22/2011 19:58:42

Steve --
As Ken mentioned, we are members of the Northeastern Woodworkers Association.  Check out our website at www.woodworker.org.  Which will also provide a link to the Adirondack Woodturners Association (a special interest group of NWA).

Dan

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Originally posted by 5steve

Hi ken , Nice looking project, I was just curious where are you guys located ? I,m about 25 miles southeast of Albany where the Taconic Parkway meets theThruway. I assume you are somewhat north of Albany. Steve

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