Frailin_Brayden - Posted - 02/04/2015:  20:26:45

Hello banjo friends!

My current living situation has me living in close proximity to a lot of goats. I am curious about using a skin for my fretless if one of them kicks the bucket haha. But I've read a lot of conflicting methods. Some say I can process it as rawhide, others say i need to tan the hide. I'm not sure what I'd do if one of the goats dies! Also has anyone tried usig a deer skin? My father in law hunts so I've been curious about that too. Any clarification would be greatly appreciated! I'd love to document the process as well for others to use.

-Brayden

Ohio Senator - Posted - 02/04/2015:  20:33:54

This is simultaneously the silliest, and most practical post I've ever seen on this site! LOL.

shane_lxi - Posted - 02/05/2015:  00:06:29

I remember reading a thread a while back about mountain banjos, and someone had a story about an old timer who had built him a banjo (or replacing a head on a banjo he had previously built) with gopher hide, having just recently shot it. I don't have a copy, but perhaps someone with a foxfire book may have some insight as to whether it specifically adresses the hide portion of building a banjo.

JoePasko - Posted - 02/05/2015:  02:55:43

I think you should talk with the owner of the goats, before you do anything.

jbalch - Posted - 02/05/2015:  04:41:23

Rawhide is used for banjo heads - not tanned leather.

I think deer skin might be too thick.  It also might be soft and unstable - but I'm not sure.  I recommend you search the archives for old threads on that topic. It has been discussed before.

Edited by - jbalch on 02/05/2015 04:43:24

flailing - Posted - 02/05/2015:  05:35:40

That the mark of a true banjo player - looks at a goat and see a hide head.

MusicManMike - Posted - 02/05/2015:  05:48:09

I would give it a go. Seamus O'Kane is a famous Bodhran maker in Ireland and swears that his drums sound so good because of the goat skin heads he uses. If you do try it out, pay attention to the thickness in the hide as it will vary from place to place on the animal. Find a good thin section and carve it out from there.

Frailin_Brayden - Posted - 02/05/2015:  06:03:37

Thanks for the info! I might give it a go if one perishes. And just a clarification, I'm attending and environmental stewardship school so the goats are theirs. I'm sure they'd let me as they wouldn't want the animal to go to waste!

mike gregory - Posted - 02/05/2015:  06:25:43

I have this enormous bucket of words in my head, and nobody knows what will spill out of it's jostled.

In this case, BANJO and STEWARD-ship combined, to remind me of banjo plus Stewie.

Anyway, best of luck with the project, and DO post a sound file when it's done.

OldPappy - Posted - 02/05/2015:  06:30:43

Heard of folks using groundhog skin, and have even heard several say the skin of an old tomcat makes the best banjo head.

Plenty of folks around here will eat groundhog, so anything useful of the animal should not be wasted.

Nobody I know would eat a cat, and cats are friendly, useful animals, so I sure don't like the idea of anyone killing one for it's hide.

I never heard of anyone using a gopher hide, and unless it is something different from what we call a "gopher" in Tennessee, it would have to be a very small banjo, for they are nothing but big brown rats.

The biggest gopher I ever saw was one that got into our fish pond, and couldn't climb back out due to the slickness of the plastic liner. It had chewed a big hole in the liner, and was hiding under a rock ledge below the waterfall. I shot it with my pistol, and that thing was about as big my little dog "Chubby" (a Chihuahua mix that weights ten or twelve pounds).

Even that huge of a gopher would not have been big enough for skin for a banjo head, and I doubt many people would even want to touch such a nasty looking varmit, let alone skin it, and clean the hide.

Goat skin, and calf skin, are commonly used to make banjo heads. It is used as rawhide, not tanned leather. The calf skin, after it has dried (rawhide) is usually sanded to make it thinner. Goat skin is fairly thin to start with, so I don't know if it needs to be thinned or not.

Deer skin is thin, and a deer isn't that different from a goat, so it might work. I have seen native American drums made with deer hide (rawhide, not leather).

Fathand - Posted - 02/05/2015:  06:51:00

I have a friend who tried moose hide on a mandolin banjo and it stretched too much, it looked similar to the deer hides my father used to sew into jackets for hunters. Goat works fine as you can buy goat skin heads for $9 at Elderly.

Reading between the lines, is your father in law hunting near the school?

shane_lxi - Posted - 02/05/2015:  07:50:36

Andy, if my memory is correct, and it's usually not, it was a stove pipe style mountain banjo, so like a 6" head surface. And also, it could just have easily been a ground hog mentioned in the thread, lol. It was a while back.

Tom Berghan - Posted - 02/05/2015:  08:01:49

As John said: Rawhide

Move 'em on, head 'em up 

Head 'em up, move 'em on 

Move 'em on, head 'em up 

Rawhide

If your hide is too thick it can be sanded . . . Drum hide heads are sanded to be very uniform and even.  I do not know the process for this but surely it must be to stretch the dry hide fairly tight on a form, and then sand it evenly with a rotary sander.  Probably fairly fine grit.  Maybe John knows.  

Edited by - Tom Berghan on 02/05/2015 08:07:16

CS Memphis - Posted - 02/05/2015:  08:15:46

Doc Watson used to tell a story about how his grandmother offered a quarter to Doc and his brother to drown an old cat of hers that had got too sick to live. She felt bad for it and wanted to put it out of its misery, but couldn't bring herself to do it herself. So anyway, they put the cat in a bucket and walked off to do the job, but neither of them really had the heart for it either. The thing that finally cinched it was their dad saw them with the bucket and asked what they were up to. Doc told him, and his dad said, well, if you do it, bring me the hide and I'll use it to make a banjo for you. And that's how Doc got his first banjo, which was made with a cat skin head.

Now, be gentle if I have remembered any aspect of this story wrong...

blockader - Posted - 02/05/2015:  08:26:00

A deer hide will be too thick. The reason you use goat or calf is because it is very thin. A fawn's skin would probably work. Deer makes great general purpose rawhide though!

You cannot tan the hide, it needs to processed into raw hide. Here is how I make rawhide, though I still haven't made a banjo head. Goat hides are a pain to work with, they are so thin they get damaged very easily.

1. flesh hide fully.

2. make a bucking solution.

    a. 2oz KOH to 5 gallons water or 2 oz red devil lye to 5 gallons water or 1 lb hydrated lime to 5 gals. you can use    hardwood ashes but i never have.

3. soak hide in solution until hair slips very easily.

4. flesh again.

5. push hair out under running water (I do it in the river that runs through my farm but you can use a tub and hose).

6. For river/creek, tie hide to tree and let the water rinse it for 24 hours. For tub weight hide to the bottom and run the hose to the bottom with slow flow for 24 hours.

7. scrape the membrane from the non hair side of the hide. be careful at this point not to damage the grain (the part of the hide that is under the hair. lay something like a towel on your scraping beam to help protect it.

8. stretch the hide wet in a frame or nail onto ply wood and dry in a shady but not cold spot environment. Thats rawhide!



 

Edited by - blockader on 02/05/2015 08:28:27

Tom Berghan - Posted - 02/05/2015:  13:24:02

A video showing some of the process

youtube.com/watch?v=JJI3WdrlO_E

mike gregory - Posted - 02/05/2015:  19:11:46

I made the mistake of leaving a rawhide head in the bath tub overnight to soak thoroughly.

Dog pulled it out and ate it.

Who, ME???

farfaraway - Posted - 02/05/2015:  19:41:00

I have used a deer hide before. They are VERY thick. I almost needed a larger tension hoop. After it stretched and stretched and stretched it sounded good. Very mellow (would compliment a tackhead). And looked great

nimbus - Posted - 02/21/2015:  15:40:35

Nothing encourages marital harmony like the wife finding a goat skin in the bath... They start off fairly thick, but after stretching and sanding ( if needed) become almost transparent. They certainly make terrific bodhrán skins.