George van Vlaanderen - Posted - 09/26/2016:  10:35:45

Anyone out there playing or making them?  I plan on making a resonator banjo out of Black Cherry in the next few months and I am considering a "woody".  Last pertinent thread on this topic that I could find was from several years ago banjohangout.org/archive/143464 and I was hoping to get some current info on the topic.  Any insights / suggestions would be helpful.  I have heard some great things about Randall Wyatt's rims and wooden tone rings.  Anyone have experience with his rims?

- George

mhickler - Posted - 09/26/2016:  11:15:25

In my experience, tonerings of East Indian rosewood are a good choice for almost any rim.

jwold - Posted - 09/26/2016:  11:48:45

I thought Deering made one. John Hartford model, granadillo iirc.

I think there are several open back makers out there that do this.

CompanionBanjo - Posted - 09/26/2016:  12:22:15

Not sure if you saw this already George:

youtube.com/watch?v=k9Jep4TAJLk

I did an 8 minute video on my experience with them. I can confirm that Randall Wyatt does make some nice rims. I have used a few of his, a few Tony Pass rims too. You wouldn't go wrong there.

Chris
Companion Banjos

Dan Drabek - Posted - 09/26/2016:  13:14:20

I've yet to build a woodie, but  I would think the best choice of wood for the tone ring ( as opposed to the rim) would have similar requirements as the tone bars on a marimba or zylophone. I believe the best ones use Honduran rosewood. On the other hand, woodies are a fairly recent phenmenon and there may be some surprises as to what sounds best on a banjo. But hard and heavy woods seem to be the most commonly used. Cocobolo is a popular choice, and would be easier to obtain than HR.  DD

cottontop - Posted - 09/26/2016:  14:12:31

My Companion "Joe Robert" model resonator, made by Chris Sorenson, has a maple tone ring. It is plenty loud and sounds great. The light weight of the whole banjo is a plus too
cottontop

john m - Posted - 09/26/2016:  14:41:06

I've owned several woodie banjos, and the two that sounded the best had the tone ring profile integrated into the rim. Both were maple banjos and had a two piece flanges. My Turtle Hill had a Tony Pass rim & the Recording King RK-R25 had a maple 3 ply rim.  Both were excellent sounding instruments. 

George van Vlaanderen - Posted - 09/26/2016:  15:19:45

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Chris, yes I did see that video.  Thanks for posting that.  Your wood tone ring banjo sounds great!  It was a little hard to compare with the metal tone ring banjo with your woody since they are two different banjos (yours and Huber).  Here is a video that does just that and enables one to compare different tone ring set ups in the same banjo:  youtube.com/watch?v=IV_hgv2fHSk

quote:

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Originally posted by CompanionBanjo

 

Not sure if you saw this already George:



youtube.com/watch?v=k9Jep4TAJLk



I did an 8 minute video on my experience with them. I can confirm that Randall Wyatt does make some nice rims. I have used a few of his, a few Tony Pass rims too. You wouldn't go wrong there.



Chris

Companion Banjos

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ClayTech - Posted - 09/26/2016:  17:57:17

There are other domestic hardwoods that work well for the tone ring, too, like hickory, persimmon, and oak.

Ken LeVan - Posted - 09/26/2016:  18:17:14

Some woodies have an integral tone ring, some have the tone ring as a separate piece.  I have done both kinds, and personally like the tonering to be larger than the integral kind.

I have had success using black locust as a tone ring material on a lighter weight rim. Black locust is a very dense north American hardwood, which sounds metallic when it used as a bridge. That quality prompted me to try it as woodie tone rings.

Here's a pic of a black locust woodie tone ring on a walnut rim:

Because the whole assembly is very light, and woodies can be quite bright sounding and even "flighty", my own personal style with this is to use a brass bracket band, preferably with ball brackets, which adds mass to the rim, along with a substantial tension hoop. This increases the metal-to-wood ratio to roughly 3:1, for what it's worth.  I have thought about using a metal skirt on a woodie.

Dick Guggenheim has had great success with archtop woodies, and I think he is the only person doing that.  Dick is using baked ipe for the tonering part, I believe.

fretful1 - Posted - 09/26/2016:  22:28:04

Check with Zachary Hoyt (Zachary Hoyt Banjos, Etc.).  He's just finished a wood tone ring banjo for me.

BanjoBill - Posted - 09/27/2016:  10:11:33

Here is a banjo that I built with a purple heart tone ring and a birch rim. Neck is maple. This banjo rings just like one of my Gibsons but just has less volume and of course weighs much less.

woodie 2

woodie 1

 

 

farmer bob - Posted - 09/28/2016:  06:25:37

I built my first banjo with a walnut ring on white birch body. I shaped the block rim on a band saw inside and out. Very nice sound, not loud but a unique tone, more complex than metal, nice sustain. FB.

RioStat - Posted - 09/28/2016:  13:53:58

quote:

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Originally posted by farmer bob



I built my first banjo with a walnut ring on white birch body. I shaped the block rim on a band saw inside and out. Very nice sound, not loud but a unique tone, more complex than metal, nice sustain. FB.

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How'd you get a bandsaw blade inside a rim?

Zachary Hoyt - Posted - 09/28/2016:  15:27:22

It's easy for folks who have a bandsaw blade welder.

Zach

mb03557 - Posted - 09/28/2016:  15:49:52

The folks at Pisgah Banjo offer a wood tone ring made of persimmon from the North Carolina area, which is not to be confused with the persimmon we have in Texas. The NC variety is very hard wood. There are several sound demos of their products on YouTube. One where the player uses the same tune on three different tone ring models: brass ring, persimmon, and Dobson. 

Marc

Dan Drabek - Posted - 09/28/2016:  15:53:57

It's easy even without a blade welder. I just glue up each layer of the stack, but don't use any glue on two opposite joints. Then I mark the inside circle, remove the clamp and separate the layer into two halves, bandsaw the inside of each half, and glue and clamp it back together. Then I mark and bandsaw the outside circle.

DD

George van Vlaanderen - Posted - 10/03/2016:  10:37:57

I am thinking about about either a beech or cherry rim with a rosewood tone ring.  Any opinions or experience with beech or cherry rims?

Thanks.

George