tgorham3 - Posted - 12/03/2011:  08:24:27

I was on the brink of finishing my first gourd banjo and the gourd cracked.  Happened over Thanksgiving weekend.  I had mounted the head in the afternoon, fitted the neck to get a preview of how it would look and left it to dry for about 20 hours.  The neck fit, as it always had, snuggly but in no way tight.  The next day I picked it up by the neck and there was a pop and a two inch crack appeared where the neck joined the gourd.  I took the neck off and considered how to repair it but when I put any pressure on the rim to close the gap you could hear the crack spread.  Went on the road for a week to work with a client and when I came back the crack was now on both sides, 3.5" on one side of the neck and 11" on the other.  Sooo...

The questions are:

• 
  Any chance at all this is repairable?  I can't imagine any way myself but it would be great to be wrong.


• 
  What did I do wrong?  


• 
  Next time around, would it make sense to have braces to prevent a split from extending or fiberglass patches around the holes where the neck joins the gourd a la mandolin f holes with cloth and glue

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Cheers... TG (Soon to be owner of a gourd tambourine)

Pre Finish and Head

Finished with Head Mounted

The Crack in all its Glory

scooter46 - Posted - 12/03/2011:  08:49:06

I don't know anything about patching a pumpkin, just wanted to pass on my condolences, after all the work to have it happen at the end of your build, was really looking good. Larry

PeterRedwoods - Posted - 12/03/2011:  14:24:53

I was showing my friend my almost completed gourd banjo. He unfortunately didn't know the gourd was just slid on to the dowelstick. He picked it up and it slipped off and hit the ground, all my hard work flashed in front of my eyes. There was a crack on the tailpiece end's dowelstick opening. I epoxied it and applied a very very thick pour-on poly urethane all over the interior of the gourd...its been fine for two and a half years.

That is one huge crack you have there. I wonder if its just the specific gourd's natural make up and the pressure from the head drying?

It would mean a lot more heel shaping but could you slice the gourd down and start over? The head diameter would be pretty wide in that case making sagging more of a problem. Or just get another gourd and invest in a dremel?

Bastertone - Posted - 12/03/2011:  15:15:38

I think the epoxy is the way to go. Should be stronger than the rest of the gourd. Although the urethane would make a completely reinforced gourd the epoxy alone should fix the cracks. You could epoxy a strip of fabric behind the crack and the neck joint area to add a little extra support.

JIm Widess - Posted - 12/04/2011:  00:19:07

I repair cracked gourds all of the time.   Remove the neck from the gourd.  Carefully open the crack as much as possible and work a good woodworking glue (Elmer's yellow) into the crack so that a thin bead covers all of the exposed fibers.   Squeeze the two sides of the crack back together carefully wiping up any excess glue (there should be quite a bit) which oozes out of the crack.   The use electrical tape to span across the crack.  Use long pieces of tape beginning at least 6" from one side of the crack, across the crack and then another 6" past the crack.  Stretch the electrical tape as you tape the gourd back together.  The stretching of the tape acts as a clamp keeping the two halves of the gourd together and the join squeezed in between.   Use lots of tape.  Make sure the crack is closed properly and there are no over-hangs that you can feel when you run your finger across the crack..   Leave the tape on for 24 hours.  

The next day remove all of the tape.  Clean up any glue drips.   Carefully fit the neck into the hole.  It's probably a bit too tight.  A very light sanding of the inside of the hole should be all that is needed.

Make sure your tail piece isn't putting pressure on the gourd when you string up your banjo.   The tailpiece can, over time, distort even the thickest gourd.

JIm Widess - Posted - 12/04/2011:  00:20:54

I repair cracked gourds all of the time.   Remove the neck from the gourd.  Carefully open the crack as much as possible and work a good woodworking glue (Elmer's yellow) into the crack so that a thin bead covers all of the exposed fibers.   Squeeze the two sides of the crack back together carefully wiping up any excess glue (there should be quite a bit) which oozes out of the crack.   Then use electrical tape to span across the crack.  Use long pieces of tape beginning at least 6" from one side of the crack, across the crack and then another 6" past the crack.  Stretch the electrical tape as you tape the gourd back together.  The stretching of the tape acts as a clamp keeping the two halves of the gourd together and the join squeezed in between.   Use lots of tape.  Make sure the crack is closed properly and there are no over-hangs that you can feel when you run your finger across the crack..   Leave the tape on for 24 hours.  

The next day remove all of the tape.  Clean up any glue drips.   Carefully fit the neck into the hole.  It's probably a bit too tight.  A very light sanding of the inside of the hole should be all that is needed.

Make sure your tail piece isn't putting pressure on the gourd when you string up your banjo.   The tailpiece can, over time, distort even the thickest gourd.

bricklifter - Posted - 12/04/2011:  05:06:48

i've had gourds crack after they dry out--if the dowel-rod is fitted, and the gourd shrinks--it cracks.  If you glue it, you might find that it is a tighter fit to the neck and you need to expand the hole

chris

tgorham3 - Posted - 12/04/2011:  06:32:22

Jim, Chris, Peter, et all...

Good to hear that people have had success repairing cracks. The news gave me the confidence to really lean on the crack and try to marry up the top and the bottom of the split. I knew that it was going expand the crack and it did so with a painful ripping noise (gourds do make good resonators). The crack is now winning by an impressive: Crack 29" to Intact Gourd 3 3/4". The good news is I have easy access to the gluable surface. I can pull the gourd together but due to the tension of the head there is never going to be a smooth join. This can probably be minimized to a degree using Jim's electrical tape approach (or perhaps a variation on that theme using strips of bicycle inner tube I have laying around).

Thank you again and I'll keep you posted...TG

Crack Opened Up for Gluing

bricklifter - Posted - 12/04/2011:  13:03:28

ok.....

bag it: get another gourd--one that is very dry

chris

Bart McNeil - Posted - 12/05/2011:  06:14:42

I am starting on a couple of goard banjos and from what I've read your goard appears to be much too thick to survive the tension.... Your appears to be less than a half inch thick where I have read that close to 3/4 or even an inch is preferable. The goards I am experimenting with first are much larger than yours. You can also buy goards pre-hollowed out from some goard sellers. If you discuss your goard use with them I am sure they can meet your needs for wall strength.

Interesting thread.

Fathand - Posted - 12/05/2011:  06:38:21

I will vouch for repairing with simple woodworking glue as well

quote:

---

Originally posted by JIm Widess

I repair cracked gourds all of the time.   Remove the neck from the gourd.  Carefully open the crack as much as possible and work a good woodworking glue (Elmer's yellow) into the crack so that a thin bead covers all of the exposed fibers.   Make sure your tail piece isn't putting pressure on the gourd when you string up your banjo.   The tailpiece can, over time, distort even the thickest gourd.

---

tgorham3 - Posted - 12/05/2011:  09:11:07

I followed Jim's approach with yellow glue and electrical tape and have things pretty much pulled back together but the upper edge consistently extends beyond the lower. This makes sense from a stress perspective with the shrinking head pulling in the top of the gourd and the opposite and equal force pushing out the gourd.

The bad news is that there will never be a clean seam. The good news is when I hold an old guitar tuning fork to the head, it sings nicely.

Perhaps a strip of leather to decorate/hide the crack will serve to get me by aesthetically until the Midwest's humidity crashes in February and the gourd implodes as the head continues to shrink.

One caveat for anyone considering the electrical tape approach is that electrical tape still leaves behind a nasty black adhesive residue anywhere the gourd remains rough. It cleans up easily but electrical tape hasn't improved much since I bought my last roll a couple of decades ago. Fortunately I had covered the head in plastic wrap that I taped down with masking tape. Where the tape could have made a mess that wouldn't be easy to clean, the head was protected.

Cheers...TG

tgorham3 - Posted - 12/05/2011:  09:24:22

Bart,

If you have any recommendations for specific types of gourds and any sellers whose gourds have proven to be thick please let me know.

I bought my gourd off eBay from a seller who had come up on the forum before. I don't recall the name at the moment. When I cut the top off it did strike me as a little thin, running about a half inch at peaks and three eighths at valleys, but looking at pictures of other gourd banjos it didn't seem too different from the thickness of those banjo's based upon what I could judge from shots of their sound holes. I took a pass on a sound hole myself because I was afraid I would destabilize the gourd.

Bart McNeil - Posted - 12/06/2011:  07:02:45

This is the outfit which was recommended to me by an experienced goard banjo builder. I am sure if you call and discuss your concerns they can accomodate your needs for goard wall strength. I believe these are normally pre-hollowed when you receive them. Anyway it is worth a phone call to find out whether they can meet your needs for maximum strength. Or maybe you can get one simply dried and do the hollowing yourself... As long as they are dry they can be cleaned out and not rot. Wish you luck on your next try.

northerndipper.com/index.php

C Nyal de Kaye - Posted - 12/06/2011:  12:46:13

Following is a quotation from John Herrington's post on making gourd banjos. It may be helpful guidance.

"When I install the head, I soak the skin about 30 minutes in water, drape it over the gourd's open top and use a Dremel tool to drill a hole through the wet skin and gourd at 12 o'clock  just a little smaller than the uphostlery tacks I will use. Then I push the tack through the skin and gourd. I proceed to do the same at 6 o'clock followed by tacks at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock. Be careful not to stretch the skin between the tacks! Only remove the wrinkles...no more.

"I then half the distance between each tack and follow the same procedure, drilling and installing the tack nearest you and then the one fartherest from you until they are no more than one inch apart on a line around the top of the banjo about 3/4 of an inch below the top edge of the banjo. I repeat, do not stretch the skin as you install it. It is wet rawhide and when it dries it might crack your gourd! It will be extremely tight within 12 hours. Another thing to remember is, resist the urge to test the tightness by pressing down on the head, that depression may be permanent if you do it until it has set over night."

You may read the whole post at

banjohangout.org/my/John%20Herrington

HolyGrass - Posted - 12/06/2011:  13:01:06

Sorry to hear about your misfortune with the gourds. I recently had some of that myself with the gourd banjo uke I'm making. I broke 2 gourds, really good too. My problem was that the skin I was using was VERY thick; had to push too much pressure down to puncture the head.

It's aggravating, but gourds can be fixed. There is a gourd museum in north Georgia; on exhibit is a gourd bowl that had been smashed, but they sowed it back together... not sure if it still held water, but it sure did look really cool.

the thickest gourd i've used, also the largest, is probably around 1/2 inch at the thickest part.. maybe even a little under. This gourd was actually grown in central Georgia, by a friend with a green thumb. I've heard that gourds grow much larger on the West coast, but I'm not too sure. The gourds that are used in India for sitars are probably the biggest i've ever seen... and do you know how much tension there is on a sitar?? They have upwards of 20 strings...

I used simple yellow glue to fix my gourd, seems pretty stable now =)

tgorham3 - Posted - 12/06/2011:  23:21:51

> do not stretch the skin as you install it. It is wet rawhide and when it dries it might crack your gourd!

Gourd Banjos seem to be one of those pursuits where experience is the only thing that will allow you to "get it right" on a consistent basis and experience probably means that at some point you are weighing glue and electrical tape against the compost heap. Got that out of the way...

HolyGrass - Posted - 12/07/2011:  03:50:41

i'll say that stretching the skin is relative to how thick the skin is. for instance, the VERY thick skin i used didn't get very "loose" after I soaked it for 30+ minutes, so I had to stretch it a little bit when installing it; and the head is still not as tight as I would have liked.

think heads, which are likely preferable, will expand WAY more when they are soaked

steve j. - Posted - 05/14/2012:  07:02:23

I made 2 gourd pretty strong with a coating inside of a type of plumbers putty and a couple coats of titebond 2... After experiencing a crushed gourd on a gourd banjo I bought ,,, I did not want this to happen to the one I made. Also the small bit of added weight to the gourd,,, helps to make it more balanced , YMMV

also about stretching the skin,,,, no stretch may be the way to go in real dry areas,,,, but if you did that down here you would end up with a trampoline. So if you seek guidance on issues like stretching,,, make sure the advisor lives in a similiar clime. again ymmv, but I believe this will prove true

jay_m - Posted - 05/14/2012:  09:48:03

dont let the gourd air dry. hold it up in front of a space heater and rotate while flattening the skin around the tacks. youll have a 100% dry head thats smooth and uniform around in 30 minutes or so thats ready to be played.

steve j. - Posted - 05/14/2012:  09:54:06

oh, thats how you get your skin on the gourd so nicely, I will try that thank you

jay_m - Posted - 05/14/2012:  10:19:15

just dont tell anyone