uncle.fogey - Posted - 07/05/2012:  16:10:24

I have  a number of metal parts to make, now:

armrests

tailpieces

dowel stick brackets (both ends)



Starting with the armrests, I really think of these as a nuisance. I like the way the old Vega ones look, but they don’t work very well, and you either have to put them on wrong, or modify them.

I have developed a design that doesn’t have any bolts  to hold it on, and it’s easy to make.

I can make them in any metal.

In this case, brass.

I am using a piece of brass I got at Lowes that is a door-bottom kick-plate. It’s just the right thickness, but I have to sand off the lacquer coating, which will make it harder to polish.



I trace my patterns onto the brass with a sharpie.

In the upper left of the top picture are parts for tailpieces, which I cut out at the same time.

This brass is fairly thin -you can cut these out with a jigsaw, a scroll saw, a jeweler’s saw or a bandsaw.  I used a bandsaw.



Then I rolled the back piece with a sheet metal roller, but you could squeeze it between two wooden forms.

The bottom picture shows them lining up:





Then I silver solder them together, making a nice fillet in the back, then I dip them in picklijng solution, clean them up and roughly polish them

I'll have to polish these more before I'm finished and ready to do the patina.



Just as an idiot check, I make sure they will fit properly on the pot:





I will have to solder lugs onto these for the hooks to go through, then drill holes in the tops, but that will be later.



I am making the inner back part of the tailpieces, where I have to bend the brass cut-outs 3 times, then silver solder the joint - this part sits on the tension hoop.

The actual “tailpiece” will be cut out of heavy material. I haven’t gotten to that part yet - maybe tomorrow.

I am only polishing the parts you will see - the back-side in the bottom picture will be covered by the "actual tailpiece".





I made these things while I was waiting for the glue on the heel cap joints to dry.



I am getting a lot done on these banjos because until my finger heals, I can’t build stone walls or split firewood.

 

Ladelnutts - Posted - 07/05/2012:  16:28:40

You are one helluva craftsman. You don't assemble banjos, you truly make them. You can't come out with a book fast enough.

uncle.fogey - Posted - 07/05/2012:  16:39:32

quote:

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Originally posted by Ladelnutts

You are one helluva craftsman. You don't assemble banjos, you truly make them. You can't come out with a book fast enough.

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Thank you!

I am going to be laying out probably 150 pages, maybe more.

Apropos of the armrest info above, here's a sample layout of one page:

Ladelnutts - Posted - 07/05/2012:  18:59:15

I had to jump on your website and check it out. I didn't know you were an industrial designer. Now it all makes sense! I got my master of architecture at Virginia Tech and we had a lot of commingling with the industrial design students. I always loved looking at the crazy things they'd come up with.

uncle.fogey - Posted - 07/06/2012:  04:30:44

quote:

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Originally posted by Ladelnutts

I had to jump on your website and check it out. I didn't know you were an industrial designer. Now it all makes sense! I got my master of architecture at Virginia Tech and we had a lot of commingling with the industrial design students. I always loved looking at the crazy things they'd come up with.

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Thank you!

Crazy is the perfect word - Still crazy after all these years.

Dick Guggenheim - "dickinnorwich" on the hangout is an architect, too - he's my "long lost brother, separated at birth".  We are the ones who try to convince people to get wood lathes instead of machine lathes, have archtops, and other crazy stuff.

uncle.fogey - Posted - 07/07/2012:  15:41:43

Continuing on with the parade of miscellaneous metal gizmos - “MMGs”, if you will - I cut the tailpiece proper out of a relatively thick piece of brass - .080”,  then while it is still flat, I drill all the holes for the string studs and the adjusto-screw - you can see here how reverent I am about tailpiece adjustments.

Then, I put it into a large vise, and bend it with a 3 pound hammer (wish it was a 9 pound hammer):



Then, I have to silver solder the side pieces (also made from .080 brass) on. this makes it not only heavy, but very stiff.





I have to say, that the metalworking for these MMG parts, is very much like jewelery - making, and there’s no limit to where you could go with this , artistically - here’s one I made a few years ago



- just think what you could do if you were REALLY good at this. I know people who could make metal parts that would knock your socks off.



Here are the things that drive me crazy about tailpieces, which I have designed out of my own:

(1) too flimsy and lightweight

(2) stupid cap that rattles and buzzes

(3) hard to thread

(4) loose attachment thingy that you lose

(5) a hole in the middle of it where the 3rd string has to be threaded through AAARRRGGGHHH

(6) too narrow - makes the strings splay out.

There are others.



In the course of design development, I  made a few of these tailpieces without the side stiffeners   , and the strings could bend them up.

I file out the string paths with a needle file.

So now these are silver soldered together - I tap threads in to the drilled holes, and polish them up:





Finally, I put it back together - the threaded rod that attaches it to the tailpiece lug on the pot is silver soldered on. If you are one of the guys who likes to elevate the tailpiece above the tension hoop, you can do that with mine because the attachment rod is rigidly attached - for those who are interested, it weighs 116 grams.



On to the armrest.

I have to drill holes in the top of it for the hooks to fit through. I already broke my finger - in order not to kill myself with a flailing brass armrest, I use a wooden form, which holds it securely - I have been told that an end mill makes this safer:



So now, after the patina bath and some fooling with that, here’s how they fit on the pots - you can really see the great colors of the patinas on this - the various brass alloys act differently, and I am using 4 different ones here:





Now on to the dowel hardware.

There seems to be no good term for the thing that firmly attaches the dowel to the rim, so I’m going to call it the “dowel rim clamp”.

I make these from an aluminum alloy - think bicycle components and mountaineering gear:

 Unlike others, I drill the hole for the adjusto  at an angle so when you tighten it, id doesn’t contact the dowel stick. The bearing surface is nickel silver, and the rod is made from a 16d nail.



I also make a piece for the tailpiece end, which I call the “dowel bracket”.

Finally - FINALLY, I cut the notches out of the resonators for the  heels. I am using a multi-tool to cut the horizontal bottom cut and a Japanese saw to cut the sides

Bill Porter says that Gibson would not cut these until after the resonators were finished, and if you looked under the felt, the wood was unfinished.

Interesting - and another intriguing “work order” mystery!





Anyway, now, I’m ready to finish the necks and resonators!

jwoods - Posted - 07/07/2012:  15:54:08

Ken,

I know your building 2 banjos here, but approximately how many hours does it take you to build one like this?

Jim

uncle.fogey - Posted - 07/07/2012:  16:10:18

quote:

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Originally posted by jwoods

Ken,

I know your building 2 banjos here, but approximately how many hours does it take you to build one like this?

Jim

 

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If I was building one with some deadline that I had to adhere to, and it was a design I had already worked out, I could do it in a month, given drying times and season of the year. Of course, that doesn't mean that I would be working on it all day, every day.  That's just a rough estimate, and I could probably do 2 or 3 in a month, also.

The biggest unknown for me is design time, and  it can take quite a while to figure out some things.

Hours - I have no idea.

Ken

geezr - Posted - 07/07/2012:  16:33:55

Ken

Have you tried Brasso on the pad of an orbital sander to clean the lacquer off? Also how about lacquer thinner?

Jay