Update on the finish!

Finishes are like bridges on banjos, everyone has an opinion and a certain look they tend towards.  I make no claims here , just that I finish many woodturnings with lacquer (nitrocellulose) and many with polyurethane. 

Polyurethane is a tough hard finish which can be brought to a satin or high gloss luster.   It is similar in overall look to that on many banjos even though that which is used is clearcoat or catalysed lacquer.

I spray on about five coats LIGHTLY.  Allowing these to dry , then sand 400 grit and spray on another five coats. Then sand LIGHTLY 600.  Then I spray individual coats or two checking carefully looking for the final best finish.

THEN the secret formula.  Crest MINT toothpaste in a water slurry with a paper towel.  Rinse in the sink to remove the toothpaste and dry.  Water will run off like the finish on a new car.  SMELLS minty also! :) :)

If you want SATIN finish, the the last few coats sprayed should be satin POLY.

Here are the pics:

I should say there was some airbrushing done to enhance the peghead around the edge using black !  This was done after the first five coats.

Just a few more of the resonator back.  The bubinga on the neck and on the resonator rim was sanded to make it show more of its true color and the walls of the resonator inside and outside below the bubinga rim were airbrushed with a light coat of black .

I will try to get photos of these areas up soon.

Edited by - ken61 on 02/05/2012 06:47:42

Ken

You don't need any inlays. they would only take away from your finishing.

Ah !  NUTS

Plastic, Corion, or BONE  !

BONE for me.

The large white rectangular piece is Corion, the smaller rectangular piece is BONE and it was twice as long before I cut it in half and made the nut you see with the rounded top.

If you never made one before, practice on Corion--you can usually find a piece or get one from a countertop place.

I don't like plastic-but it works.

A bone piece will usually cost about $6 for a piece big enough to make 2 NUTS.

You can process you own bone from the butcher, but I is a chore!  No thanks.  One of our builders is trying that.

Make sure the neck at the upper end of the fretboard is prepared carefully.  Flat on the bottom, and about 1/4 inch wide with upper side parallel to the end of the fretboard.   Take the time to do this right.

I simply sand the Bone to shape SLOWLY checking OFTEN for the correct fit.  There is no magic, just keep checking and get it right.

I glue the nut in with a TINY (really TINY) dab of duco cement .  One on the bottom each side and one against the fretboard end.  The strings hold the nut in place and very little glue is needed.  Actually you want too little glue because you want the nut to easily fall out of place with a tap of a hammer and a small wooden block without damaging the neck or fretboard.  So  TINY drop --on the end of a toothpick  3 of these one on each side bottom and one against the fretboard.

I have been thinking the same thing  ---no inlay or maybe just simple pearl dots--small ones.

Glad you mentioned this.

thanks

ken

quote:

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Originally posted by ken61

I have been thinking the same thing  ---no inlay or maybe just simple pearl dots--small ones.

 

Glad you mentioned this.

 

thanks

 

ken

---

You're killing me !!! :)

That finish job is crying out for some turquoise or paua!!!

Yeah, it doesn't NEED it, but no banjo NEEDS it.

(can ya tell I'm an inlay nut?)

Ok !  I admitt it.  I am a wood guy !  I would likely do anything not to have to cut inlay since I really have never done it before. 

I believe in the future I will bind all necks and resonators with wood not plastic.  I can do wood, not plastic and not pearl or abalone.

ken

OK, Here is my design for the neck inlay which I was seriously considering using.

It is a vine like deal running the full length of the fretboard.

Maybe pearl, maybe green abalone! ?????

ken

Now we're talking!!!!

Ken, I'm a wood guy too. Although I love inlay and did the inlaying myself (much like marquetry), I have to confess, although I made a few, most of the shell inlay I used was from Andy DePaule. There's a lot of selection and his prices are such that I'd spend just as much hacking on shell on my own.
Unlike your vine, I only had one piece of inlay that spanned two frets and had to be slotted for the fret wire. I lost a gallon of sweat when it came time to fret that slot for fear of breaking the shell.

Here is the finished NUT of BONE

It may need adjustment of height later.

Anything taken off will be from the bottom.  It has been fitted perfectly into the prepared area at the end of the fretboard.

The other pics are of the file I use.  It is from a set of very small files from Radio Shack I believe .

The pics with the NUT give you scale.

ken

Edited by - ken61 on 02/09/2012 10:05:37

Where we four are in the process:

We meet today again to resume the process of building four banjos.
One of our members is in Florida and we all took two weeks of

All four block rims are done and the pots have been assembled to be sure things fit.
We have placed a neck on each of two pots and the maker has been able to play the pot for about 2 weeks.
The neck will move to the third pot today for use by the owner for about two weeks.

All Resonators have been glued up and one is completed. The other three are near completion and two more will likely be done today.

Only one Mine the blue green one has been dyed and had some finish put on it. Still a ways to go.

Only one neck the green one pictured above has been 95 percent completed.

Bridge material has been glued up and they will be underway today.

We have all the hardware now and my prediction of about $600 each was pretty close reasonable and pretty close.

There is a HUGE woodworking show and woodturning symposium March 31 and April 1 sponsored by our club and we intend to have these banjos on display at that Show.

Woodworkers Showcase and Totally Turning in Saratoga Springs NY is a terrific event. If you live within distance, come join us--4000 others will. I should disclose I am the general Chairman of Woodworkers Showcase and the above is a shameless advertisement. Forgive me.

Most of the pics which I have posted are of My banjo as it was the one out in front in production. This was needed as the others have never seen a banjo produced and I wanted mine to be an example of what we were going to do.

Now, because the others have produced parts of their banjos, I will surely post pics of these as well.

We are having a great time doing this project and I hope the postings have been helpful to others !

If you have even thought of doing this , I highly recommend it .

Feedback on what was helpful or not and on anything else that might be helpful is welcome for sure.
We place no egos in our banjos, so even criticism is welcome--friendly criticism, of course.

ken

Ok, It was a big day yesterday.  One of our members still in Fla.

First pic is of Rich filing the half hole in the tone ring.  As stated before we were NOT happy with these tone rings.  We realize they were not pre-war, but these were bent, in several places.  They came from Ant Hill Music .  I believe Dan contacted them.  Dan is in Fla, so we do not yet know their response.

Another Resonator was completed yesterday.  Curly maple and birch walls in segmented style.

Another pic of the wall segmentation.  Again these are FIRST attempts for the guys so the segmentation is quite ordinary.  You can get quite ornamental with a segmented form.

More pics of the resonator inside

The resonator wall

The resonator wall

Just some random pics of yesterday's work

Gluing ears on the neck--This neck is ready to be roughed out on the bandsaw

Using a dremel to cut the depression for access to the truss rod end.

Well, more progress today !

Here you see Peter cutting the resonator for the neck heel.

The cut was made with a coping saw and the touchup is being done with a dremel.

This resonator is now finished.

Next two pics are of Rich power sanding the resonator back

Then a pic of the Mahogany and maple back.  This resonator is now finished.

We now have four rims finished, three resonators finished and one nearly finished.

One neck is pretty much done and one is started.  We are adding an evening a week to our building schedule so as to have them ready for the show March 31 and April 1.

We have decided to forgo cutting pearl and just buy precut and inlay it ourselves as time is getting short.

ken

There is much hand sanding of a resonator back

Here is a look at the jig to drill Coordinator rod holes in the rim in action.

Well, this little journey is soon coming to a close. I surly hope some of the readers learned a few things, or at least enjoyed reading the posts.

We are now discussing the inlay options. Unfortunantly , we are woodworkers and not inlay artists, so we are looking to keep things simple. I have abandoned my desire to do a vine theme on my fretboard. Rich wants a western theme, and peter wants it simple but done in ivory.
Dan is still in Florida and we are not sure of his intended direction with regard to inlay.

For the most part, it will be neck sculpting, inlay , apply the fretboard, profile the heel, add bolts, add frets, and apply the finish. (Maybe also peghead veneer) Gee, maybe this will only go on for another year with all that to do.

We have a deadline of March 30 ! It MUST be done. Anyway , I think I mentioned it before , we are adding a weeknight to our schedule to "git er Done!" :)

Everyone , except me , has decided to place a natural finish on the entire banjo.

I must say they look sharp for first time banjos !

ken

I hope you keep posting those final steps. Thanks again.

Absolutely!  We are good to go to the end when I will post pics of the finished four banjos and the four makers!

ken

Here is my rig for drilling the lag bolt holes in the heel.

You can see my drill press table swung out of the way The rig is in two parts. A base to simply raise it up and the rig to hold the neck vertical.

The rig is a base plate of plywood, a vertical backing board at 90 degrees to the base, and another piece glued on to the vertical piece which is also vertical. The straight edge of the fretboard goes along this edge so that the neck is held vertical. The neck is clamped by a neck wheel (actually a neck half wheel shown below. You make one wheel and split it and you have two neck half wheels. Groove the edge along the diameter and line them with foam and they are great in many ways when messing with banjos or even those other stringed instruments.

Anyway a clamp holds it all straight in the vertical. Sorry I did not take a pic as I was actually drilling, so this neck is stages and it already has the lag bolts installed.

Ok, I said I would tell all even the ugly. So here is some ugly!

All coordinator rods do NOT take the same lag bolts. The size of the threaded portion of the lag bolt is NOT the same on all and the thread pitch is not the same. I just ruined a set of coordinator rods by threading them onto lag screws of the wrong dimension. DUH ! It is easy to do--trust me.

Advice: Dry test the fit of the threads on the lag bolts and the coordinator rods before installing. They should thread very easily. Mine were a LITTTLE hard to thread as they stripped out the inside threads on the coordinator rods.

I have come across at least three different sizes. Check carefully and keep different sizes separated and marked for reference.

Anyway , I am sure there are other rigs out there for doing this ! This is just my idea and I may have borrowed heavily from others I have seen. A thread on making rigs for various operatiuons would be a good thing here on BHO. Everyone could show their rigs and explain them.

Sharing info is a good thing !

ken

Here is the neck half circle

Drilling for the fifth string tuner.

Of course there is a rig to hild the neck steady and to hold the fretboard at 90 degrees to the drill press table thus parallel to the drill.

You can see the rig in the pics.  Notice the two dowels in the rig.  The straight edge of the neck sets on these two dowels with the fretboard up against the rig whose face is 90 degrees to the table.  Masking tape holds the neck on the rig.  There is very little pressure.

Notice the high tech depth gauge on the drill set to 1/2 inch depth.  (masking tape.)

Notice also the rig has a groove to allow for the fifth string nut to clear.

The reamer in the picture is made from a standard reamer ground off at the correct place.

Please note --not all fifth string tuners are the same so make sure your reamer is correct for your tuner.

The frill used here was 21/64ths and the hole went down 1/2 inch.   The hole is just under the fretboard.  If you looked into the hole , you would see the bottom of the fretboard at the top of the hole.

Be sure to take the knob of the tuner and place a socket oner the stem and gently hammer it it snugly.  GENTLY.

The nut has been applied as described in previous posts. 

We meet tonite to continue the  project !

ken

Ken,

I can't believe you used a twist drill so close to the neck/fretboard joint. I used a forstner bit and was sweating bullets!

I would really love it if you'd put together a photo album of all the jigs you guys have made!

Here is the tuner installed!

You can see the nut in this pic.

Still debating the inlay!

ken

Still working on the finish of PolyUrethane..  Apply finish, apply finish, apply finish , apply finish, sand lightly, apply finish etc.

It is building and looking good.!

I have used only dots to mark the fretboard.  I must practice the inlay --I'm a wood guy.

The fretting the fretboard now.  I have 9 frets left to do.  The picture says it.  Each had thin CA glue run down the edges.  The fretboard will be scraped free of any residue after the fretting is completed.

Notice in the pic, one fret is somewhat long on the left, this will be corrected later.

I have veneer gluing from which to make a truss rod cover.  Four sheets of veneer curly makore.  It will be scrollsawed to make a cover--of what shape , I do not know yet.  If this doesn.t work, I will try something else.

The tuners are all installed and this puppy is ready very soon for strings.

The resonator brackets have been screwed to the rim and the hardware has been applied to the inside of the resonator.

I must say the quality of the hardware for which you pay considerably, is quite poor.  I had to use a tap on the resonator lugs and a die on the screws before they would fit.  We have done two sets so far and needed to do this on both--likely will need to do it to the other two sets.  Quality control by end user!

Except for little errors which likely nobody but us will ever see or know about, all four banjos are going very well.  Peter is inlaying with real Ivory--he has his pieces already cut and ready to inlay.

Necks are being carved--we place a sacrificial fretboard with binding on the neck blank and carve it to nearly correct dimensions--remove that fretboard and apply the real fretboard --then do final sculpting and sanding.  The sacrificial fretboard is moved from neck to neck as the builder gets ready to sculpt.

It is interesting to note how the necks were carved.  One was done using an air die grinder and a rasp head, one was done using a sanding drum in a drill, and one was done using a benchtop drum sander (motor with double shaft and an inflatable drum on each side.

It seems the drum sander (inflatable) was the fastest way to go.

Pics on the other necks will follow shortly!

ken

Edited by - ken61 on 02/25/2012 17:41:31