As promised, here is the neck which one of the guys thinned out too much.  Rich plans to use it as a baseball bat when the weather n NY warms up!

Today we spent gluing up another neck blank for Rich.  This neck was Sepele and maple, the new one is real mahogany and maple.  Since the resonator is real mahogany and maple we figured this is better.  With a caution not to get too aggressive with the sander, Rich is going to put some extra time into the new neck to get it up to speed.

We get time to chat about things banjo at lunch and we are all planning to go to Cafe Lena on May 4 for  Tony Trischka and Territory performance and then on May 5 for something called the Banjo Summit with many local banjo players performing.  Two nights of BANJO Music !  :)  :)  There is a great deal of bluegrass and banjo in our area.  Grey Fox is just down the road this summer.

We four have made arrangements to have banjo lessons together  twice a month from the same teacher who got three of us started some years ago.  This will be great fun.

ken

Edited by - ken61 on 03/11/2012 11:07:56

This banjo building MUST be a sickness as I find myself already designing my next banjo.  The desire seems to be , How to stuff into the next banjo  ALL the things you learned in building ALL those  before.

MAYBE this is why some banjos seem to be so fancy!

ken

Ok, BANJO BUDDIES met today and we made progress.

! fretboard was glued on and one nut of Bone was sanded to fit,

The two other necks are being finished.  The fret wires are being prepared on one end to be installed.

The neck which was sanded too thin at the first fret exposing the truss rod has be re done and is up to speed.

We will meet this Thursday evening to get some extra time.  Sorry , we were too busy to take pictures.

I did however do some work on my banjo which I was not intending to do until I read another post here on the BHO.

The post referred to a fifth fret modification by adding a little height to the fifth fret under the fifth string.

What a great idea.  Here is what I did.  This is NOT my idea and you should check out the post in this forum regarding this idea.

I took a piece of brass tubing maybe 3/32 in diameter and ground away 1/2 of the tube so the piece was a "U" shape.

I cleaned up the edges, filed the ends square, and made it about 1/4 inch long.  This U shaped piece fit over the top of the fifth fret under the fifth string just raising it the thickness of the tubing wall.

I will super glue it to the fret.

Apparently others have done this for some time.

Here is a pic

ken

OK, we spent the evening catching up.

We worked on two necks--fine tuning the shapes and getting the heels cut to fit the pots.

Again I promised the good the bad and the ugly, so here it is.

On one neck Peter shaped the heel too far to the rear--by about 1/2 inch--This simply makes his heel a little short. It will not come out of the resonator as far.

It will work. We are working under some pressure trying to finish by MArch 30 and the big woodworking show in Saratoga Springs, NY where these banjos will be on display.

Truth is they may be on display unfinished.

We were moving so fast tonight we did not get pictures.

Pics to follow Sunday !!

ken

OK, lots of progress today.

Rich got his fretboard glued on the the neck.  Notice the wonderful clamp of electrical tape.  It stretches and is just wonderful.  Two views in the pics.

The other pic is of Rich holding the biding while the CA glue dries just at the fifth fret. 

ken

Peter the first time the neck and pot are married together.  Is that a SMILE I see.

ken

The neck heel is being drilled for the lag screws.

Full length view of the jig.

ken

What fun!

Well,the show was a great success and the banjos made it to be displayed in various stages of construction.

Here are some pics at the show.

We will be back at the shop finishing them up not this week , but next.

I will continue this thread until all are finished and we have a final pic of each and some sound files.

OUch  There seems to be a server problem at BHO--I could not upload the pics.

ken

Hi Ken. We met on here some years back and you own banjo looked great then. Keep up the nice work.

Looks like the server is back !

Here are the pics I promised

ken

Maybe it was more useful/interesting to visitors that the banjos were in various stages of construction.  Is "Greenie" finished?  I'd like to see more detailed pix of that one in particular.  What tone rings and hardware did you use?

paul

Grennie is basically finished and playable.   One of the others is finished and two are still in progress.

The three will need to be fine tuned as to string height etc.

We meet this Sunday to move forward on the three.

When finished we will post finished pics of all three and some sound posts of each.

I believe you have just named my green banjo----"Greenie"

"Grennie"  has a maple blocked rim , a curly maple and bubinga resonator, and a curly maple neck.

The green is airbrushed dye and ink along with some black for contrast.

All metal parts were obtained from Stewmac and First Quality Music.

The tonering was purchased some years ago from ebay and is brass with nickel plate.  It is nothing special , but the banjo in general sounds great and I am most pleased.  It also plays all the songs my other banjos play --which is a plus.  :)  :)

I will likely continue to make banjos until one of them plays Foggy Mountain Breakdown perfectly.  :)  :)

ken

wish i could do that!! very nice :)

Well, we met again today three of us.  Dan was unable to attend.

Rich worked on the final shaping of his neck and final sanding as well as drill the holes for the tuners.  Sorry no pics of this.  Rich will cut the heel next and attach the neck to the finished pot.

Peter has it all finished.  We spent the session today doing the set up of the entire banjo.  Everything came out pretty good.  We will let the strings pull on the neck for awhile and then do any minor adjustments in a week or two.  Three pics of Peter's banjo are included.

Peter has already mentioned he will build another !  There is something about this process that attracts us to it.

Two more to get finished and adjusted.  Lessons for the group begin this Friday at 9:30 AM .  We are all excited to begin the lessons.

ken

Well, today we made some slight progress on two of the banjos.

A peghead was shaped and a we began to cut a heel.

Some sanding was done on the resonator of another as well as the brackets and lugs installed on the rim and resonator of the second banjo.

It was all slow going today.  Sorry no pics, but these two banjo will be looking just great in a week or two.

ken

Another fine looking banjo. Thanks for sharing.

Well, we were at it again today for several hours.

We have two banjos totally finished and two in progress very near completion.

Dan and Rich worked on their banjos today.  Dan  actually finished his neck fretting. today.

He will work on the nut before next week.

Pictures show some of this work being done by Dan.   His neck of sepelle and maple burl peghead  veneer came out quite well.

ken

Rich did some heel work today.  We cut the heel , marked the position of the heel lugs, and glued on a heel cap.

The heel cap is ebony to match the fretboard.

Rich did some last minute thinning of the heel profile.  He will finish carving the heel over the week.

BTW:  the banjo buddies all four of us will see Tony Trischka and Territory this Friday evening at Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, NY.    We are excited  and we will say hello from all of us on the hangout.

ken

Good progress, your pix in this thread are very informative.  Tony Trischka is one of my favorite Bluegrass banjo players ( I know he plays more than Bluegrass).  You will have a marvelous time!

I should have mentioned in the pic above about gluing the heel cap.  The trick to any gluing is getting the two surfaces perfectly flat.  Then clamp the joint together WITHOUT GLUE and take a look at it.   Remember that old saying  "flatten twice, glue once"  or was that about another process??  But it applies to gluing.

Put the glue on BOTH sides and clamp.

This advice applies to any gluing , not just banjos or heels of banjos.

ken

Sorry for the fact there has been no posting of this project in some time, but life gets in the way especially when there are four of us involved .

We will continue soon and I will keep everyone posted as promised until the four banjos are finished completely.

BTW:  We four hired a teacher for 2.5 hours every second Friday morning from 9:30AM to 12 noon.  We all meet together and have a long lesson.  The teacher is great--teaches tab and notation and we are all having a blast.  We have a dropbox on the internet where we share tabs and music, and lots of other stuff music related.  I digitally record the lesson and then post it to the dropbox so everyone has access to the recording of the lesson.

The last two banjos are almost done.  One simply needs setup and some pearl dots, and the other needs the neck attached and then some fretting and pearl work.

ken

Thanks again. I took the banjo apart that I had built before you started your project. I had made a lot of mistakes but decided to go ahead and finish it all the way, then go back and start over. The neck to rim fitting was the real troublesome thing. After I took it apart I tried making a sanding jig for the neck to rim that you had shown. That did help and it might work for my next one. Really enjoyed watching this progress.

Thank you !  We really enjoyed doing this together !  If a group anywhere could duplicate this project I highly recommend the venture as it was most educational , enjoyable, and rewarding.  Working together and solving problems within a group also has its benefits.

The expense is spread out over a relatively long period and even the discussions about choice of parts and sources of parts to keep cost down are educational.

Geography is a factor , of course.  we all happen to be within a 35 minute commute from where we build and where we meet to take lessons.

Thanks again, as we really enjoy the feedback from the members like yourself.

ken

Ok, we were all together again today to do some last minute work on two necks.

Dan , just back from California made a "NUT" and installed it.  Installed the tuners, and placed the neck on the rim.  It was then we found out some boozo got the two holes in the rim at the tailpiece end 1/4 inch off center.  That Boozo would be ME.  Well, I told you I would tell you the good , the bad, and the UGLY.  We will take everything apart, plug the holes, and bore new ones.  When we put it back together, it will be ready for strings.  Hey, don't tell anybody I did this ok.  It is an easy fix and it will be nearly invisible when we orient the grain of the plugs correctly.

Rich finished sanding his neck , we installed the heal cap and sanded it, installed the hanger bolts for the coord rods, and he needs to make a nut, put finish on the neck, drill for the fifth tuner, do the inlay to the fretboard, and install the frets. 

Sorry, no pics--next week.

When all is complete on all three banjos and we know everything is A-ok, we will install spikes.

Then the sound files and the pics will arrive here.

ken