Shawn Hoover - Posted - 11/25/2013:  20:29:18

I posted this one unfinished on my birthday last year (archive). I played it for most of the next year before tearing it down in the summer for tweaks and finishing. I finally finished it on my birthday this year. Making it was a ton of fun, but boy am I glad that's over--time to kick back and play some music! And maybe start on the next one... in a few days 

Here are the specs:

• 12" birch block rim with figured maple veneer


• Honduran Rosewood tone ring (I first saw the overhang from Ken LeVan's Black Locust rim here and liked it)


• 25.7" scale five-long figured maple and rock maple neck


• Koa trim


• custom brass brackets, inspired by J. Romero Banjos, generously machined by my father-in-law on a wire machine


• slotted peghead with individual slots and through holes, generously designed by friend Nick


• shopmade brass tension hoop, another J. Romero Banjos design I couldn't live without, generously rolled and brazed by a family friend


• Rickard brass hooks and nuts


• Fielding tailpiece


• Sosebee bridge


• Schertler tuners


• calfskin head


• photos by my wife, Monica (in late November natural light with no tripod, even)

Edited by - Shawn Hoover on 11/26/2013 05:21:15

	10000 Reasons	The Mighty White Looks A Little Low	Soldier's Joy
Willow's Whisper

Dan Drabek - Posted - 11/25/2013:  20:41:12

Unique and handsome Shawn. The fit and finish look flawless. It has a bright, beautiful sound as well. Great job. 

ravedog - Posted - 11/25/2013:  20:55:08

ooooooooh aaaaaaaaaw.... what more can I say..!chuck k.

f#dead - Posted - 11/25/2013:  21:07:15

Well done Shawn.  Cool layout and shaping for the slots.  My kinda banjo, tunneled 5th and slotted peghead. 

Patrick Hanna - Posted - 11/25/2013:  21:22:10

I think this is one of the most unique and attractive banjos I've ever seen. Good on your father in law for his excellent machining work. And good on Monica for the photos, too! Good on you for everything else! Now, I've got to tell you that I think fishing the strings through those holes and those very small slots would drive me crazy, but that's just me. Don't take that as a criticism. That's purely a preference thing on my part. I think the look is great. The slot configuration has a real "gee-whiz" factor that is going to leave a lot of people sort of slack-jawed. In fact, the whole instrument is pretty "gee-whiz" to my eye. I think it's totally cool.

Patrick

Iaen - Posted - 11/25/2013:  21:36:07

Wow, love the look and the sound.  

 

SoundsGoodToMe - Posted - 11/25/2013:  21:44:06

That's lovely.  I particularly like the bracket design.

dmiller - Posted - 11/25/2013:  22:17:43

Incredible workmanship!  Good sound too.  Nice job!

marc.dalmasso - Posted - 11/25/2013:  22:53:39

from Nice , i will say nice

Emiel - Posted - 11/26/2013:  03:31:22

Very exceptional and beautiful.

DouglasMcArthur - Posted - 11/26/2013:  03:48:39

WOW!
Incredible craftsmanship!
Those Tuners turned out real nice too!
but the wood is awesome!

Mike D. - Posted - 11/26/2013:  04:34:07

Nice work Shawn. That is one beautiful banjo. I like the 10,000 reasons on banjo also.

Shawn Hoover - Posted - 11/26/2013:  05:00:09

Thanks all around for the kind words. This place is as amazing for the support of fellow builders and tinkerers as it is for the information, designs, and troubleshooting help posted every day.

Patrick, it will never be as quick to change strings as a normal solid or slotted peghead, but I'm slow with strings, anyway, by the time I get the loop stuck on the tailpiece and try not to stab myself with the end. Once I learned from rudy the easy way to handle slotted peghead tuners (pull it through, cut 3" long, bend 90 degrees, and wind), it actually goes pretty smoothly. The 18:1 ratio tuners aren't as bad as I feared at the winding stage, either. The good news for me is stringing it is a whole lot easier than building it was, so I feel like I'm good to go.

Edited by - Shawn Hoover on 11/26/2013 05:16:15

Zachary Hoyt - Posted - 11/26/2013:  06:08:12

That is very impressive.  I can see it must have taken a lot of time to figure out all of the details of how to make it work.

Zach

JRushing - Posted - 11/26/2013:  06:26:22

Very cool

jduke - Posted - 11/26/2013:  06:37:59

An excellent looking and sounding banjo.  It's many unique charecteristics  must have taken a great deal of thought and planning and your craftsmanship carrying out your design  is excellent.  Very innovative, very nice!

Shawn Hoover - Posted - 11/26/2013:  07:21:40

Thanks, Zachary, Jeremy, and Jeff. I admire your builds and posts.

Many, many aspects of the design were inspired by the Romeros' work. Their website is largely responsible for me getting into this and very much defined what I wanted an open back banjo to look like. My job was to pick the woods I wanted and figure out how to build it. The latter job was made doable by the Bluestem open back construction guide and countless hours on this site.

The peghead would have taken me forever to work out, but frankly for a pro 3D designer like Nick, it took three days of lunch breaks. For the record the design was consistent with five small slots before I got my drill into it. I had to convert slots one and five after screwing them up, and then decided on the fly not to drill the third slot through the top.

Edited by - Shawn Hoover on 11/26/2013 07:23:58

Jonnycake White - Posted - 11/26/2013:  08:48:00

Great looking banjo, Shawn.  I really like those machined brass brackets

Lyndon Smith - Posted - 11/26/2013:  11:01:46

Amazing looking, stylish, innovative and sounds great. Shawn, you've really achieved something quite wonderful. It'll be around in a hundred years, who knows, maybe still in your family even. I'm blown away...

Stardust - Posted - 11/26/2013:  12:34:01

Wow, is right! Very, very well-done, Shawn. Unique, innovative, refined, all kinds of adjectives and superlatives apply. I love the choice of woods and wood finishes, the choice of hardware, everything! Personally, I wouldn't even know where to begin on a build on this - a truly fantastic job all-around. Kudos and thanks for sharing.

Shawn Hoover - Posted - 11/26/2013:  14:36:15

Thanks, guys. A hundred years... hmm... maybe I should have thought that through... I'll have to see if one of my kids grows big enough hands for the wide string spacing and patience for the funky peghead 

RBuddy - Posted - 11/26/2013:  14:52:05

Been waiting to see this all done Shawn. One of a kind, exceptional, beautifully executed in both form and function - and it's all yours!

Nice work pardner - what's next? I wonder.

Brian

Shawn Hoover - Posted - 11/26/2013:  16:40:51

Thank you, Brian. Next? Uh... I'm thinking something simpler and cheap like a regular neck on a Remo hand drum, with just a tunneled fifth for kicks.

Stardust - Posted - 11/26/2013:  16:48:15

Hi Shawn. I sent you a PM earlier today regarding the rim on your new open back, and you haven't responded, but no worries. You can go ahead and disregard the message. I've gotten the answers I needed elsewhere.

aeroweenie - Posted - 11/26/2013:  17:25:00

Really nice job Shawn!  I like the shoes.  What finish did you use?

Shawn Hoover - Posted - 11/26/2013:  17:34:23

Stardust, I think we're caught up now. Have fun with your project.

aeroweenie, thank you. The finish is blonde dewaxed shellac padded a la Jeff Jewitt padding. A base coat of boiled linseed oil blended the colors of the neck and rim veneer (the neck was almost white). I also used a couple coats of epoxy to fill the koa and some issues in the rim veneer.

Stardust - Posted - 11/26/2013:  17:40:54

quote:

Originally posted by Shawn Hoover

Stardust, I think we're caught up now. Have fun with your project.

Yup, we sure are! Many thanks Shawn, and good luck with that lovely new banjo!

rudy - Posted - 11/27/2013:  05:07:09

Super sweet, Shawn.  Kudos on the most excellent execution!

My first banjo attempts are long gone and re-cycled into a new life, so this is no small feat on your part and a testament to your very methodical M.O.

Shawn Hoover - Posted - 11/27/2013:  06:08:49

Thanks, Rudy! There is another attempt in my homepage photos that's currently not playable and hardly worth recycling :)

In all seriousness, your guide was absolutely critical in the whole process. Your web site was the first thing I found when I started researching building. I knew I had to have the guide. Seeing your pragmatic approach to each and every step laid out gave me the confidence to even start and taught me how to think about each step. I am indebted for the thought and production that went into that and I recommend it to everyone who asks where to begin.

rudy - Posted - 11/27/2013:  07:02:30

quote:

Originally posted by Shawn Hoover

Thanks, Rudy! There is another attempt in my homepage photos that's currently not playable and hardly worth recycling :)

In all seriousness, your guide was absolutely critical in the whole process. Your web site was the first thing I found when I started researching building. I knew I had to have the guide. Seeing your pragmatic approach to each and every step laid out gave me the confidence to even start and taught me how to think about each step. I am indebted for the thought and production that went into that and I recommend it to everyone who asks where to begin.

Well, thank you for the complements.  Did you get my standard open back guide or the Workingperson's 11?  Each guide that I do I try to approach things from a different perspective so I can demonstrate a variety of "outside the box" approaches.  My ultimate goal is for folks to look at the building process from their own unique set of circumstances, using my methods as inspiration to adapt whatever they have to work with.

Shawn Hoover - Posted - 11/27/2013:  07:24:19

I got the standard open back guide a couple years ago and used it for this build. I recently purchased the Workingperson's 11 guide in order to study your lamination procedure, 3+2 slotted peghead design, armrest, tuner mods, etc for future projects. Your mission was accomplished as far as I'm concerned.

mike gregory - Posted - 11/27/2013:  07:35:29

That's not only a FINE looking banjo, but it has the added bonus that IF (Heaven forefend!) it ever gets stolen, it will be the ONLY one like it, and the thief will be unlikely to fence it.

And if the thief steal it because of BAS, the banjo can never be played in public, as there are some 83,000 banjo pickers at jams around the world, who might instantly recognize it.

As for the photos: Not counting when I fell in love, that's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen on a bedsheet, in the last four dozen years!

SCclawman - Posted - 11/27/2013:  08:24:03

Shawn,

That is incredible!!! I have no idea how you were able to build that (mainly b/c i'm hardly handy enough to do the smallest of tasks aroudn the house). But wow!! That's so beautiful, and it sounds amazing.

Congrats!

Shawn Hoover - Posted - 11/27/2013:  14:37:41

Thank you, Mike and Travis. I'm pretty sketchy around the house. Banjo building helps with figuring some stuff out but not with laying a proper bead of caulk in a bathtub with funkily installed tile, for example. The nice thing about a banjo is if you mess it up or it takes two years to finish, it can sit in the shop and no one knows or cares. Busted plumbing or appliances on the other hand... I leave most jobs to the pros. That said, the tools and supplies can come in handy. Just this week I used some contact cement I had on hand to repair a piece of kitchen decor in a minute flat.

MrManners - Posted - 11/27/2013:  22:02:51

very nice,very unique--tom

Noah Cline - Posted - 11/27/2013:  22:57:14

 I wasn't expecting that. That is a very good looking banjo! I especially like the way you did the peg head instead of the traditional slot head. That third string kinda threw me there, lol.

flatfootjohnny - Posted - 02/21/2014:  08:29:22

Very nice job. That pegheads the nuts!! Great work

Shawn Hoover - Posted - 02/21/2014:  18:38:55

Thanks, Noah and John (and Doug!). It's been a lot of fun to play it these past few months.

Edited by - Shawn Hoover on 02/21/2014 18:40:18