Zachary Hoyt - Posted - 04/29/2019:  15:36:45

Yesterday was the first day of the season for our local flea market, so I rode over on my bicycle and came home with this thing, built around an old banjo pot and labeled an "instrument project". It's about 4 feet long and appears at a guess to be made from maple. I don't have very high hopes for the idea that whoever made it may have had, but the execution is really not bad. The neck is shaped well, and the glue joints are mostly good. If anyone would like the neck assembly or any portion of it I will be glad to mail it to you for the cost of postage, though I honestly can't see much use for a mini upright bass banjo like this.



I bought the thing to get the old pot, and I will probably make a neck for it at some point. If anyone recognizes the maker or time/area in which it was built I would like to know. The nuts are somewhat unlike what I have seen before, and the tone ring seems to be some kind of pseudo-archtop style. The head is drawn right down to the top of the shoes, and I am guessing it is too large, or at least too high of a crown. I may also end up turning a new rim for this hardware, I don't know. I'll be grateful for any advice or ideas on what to do with it, or what it is or may once have been. Thank you very much.

Zach

Edited by - Zachary Hoyt on 04/29/2019 15:37:54

rcc56 - Posted - 04/29/2019:  16:04:23

Can't tell from the pictures, but is that a small diameter pot, perhaps from a mandolin-banjo?
Looks pre-WWII to me. I'll leave it to others to narrow it down further.

I don't see any need to turn a new rim unless it's de-laminating. It's at least worth an attempt at a temporary string-up to see if it sounds any good. If that rim cap is coming loose, you can always re-glue or replace it.

Zachary Hoyt - Posted - 04/29/2019:  16:32:20

Rcc56, thank you very much. I forgot to measure the pot till you mentioned the size. It seems to be 10-15/16" or 10-7/8", I'm not totally sure till I get the head off and can measure it more precisely. There's one area where the inner veneer is delaminating a bit at the bottom, but it looks pretty glue-able. I was thinking more about the head clearance above the shoes, and maybe making a slightly taller rim to give more flexibility.
Zach

beegee - Posted - 04/29/2019:  16:53:56

I'd dump the goofy-looking attachment and make a real neck for it. It should make a good thumper.

Zachary Hoyt - Posted - 04/29/2019:  17:15:13

Beegee, thank you, a new neck is definitely my plan. Attachment is a good term for that old thing, it's clearly homemade and a lot newer than the pot but it looks like the whole thing has been sitting somewhere in an upright position for at least a few years judging by the thick dust on the upper half of the pot.
Zach

banjonz - Posted - 04/29/2019:  18:14:28

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zachary Hoyt

Rcc56, thank you very much. I forgot to measure the pot till you mentioned the size. It seems to be 10-15/16" or 10-7/8", I'm not totally sure till I get the head off and can measure it more precisely. There's one area where the inner veneer is delaminating a bit at the bottom, but it looks pretty glue-able. I was thinking more about the head clearance above the shoes, and maybe making a slightly taller rim to give more flexibility.

Zach

---

The bottom of the rim will give you the same measurement. To me it looks Slingerlandish. Thier pots are 10 3/4"

Bobby Burns - Posted - 04/29/2019:  18:21:45

Looks like a pretty nice pot, maybe a slingerland. With the raised head tone ring(s), it probably needs a low crown head. With a good neck, it will make a great frailer.

lazlototh - Posted - 04/29/2019:  18:23:50

NOW, that's a dowel stick!

Zachary Hoyt - Posted - 04/29/2019:  18:35:59

BanjoNZ, thanks for the idea. I can't measure the bottom either till I get the pot out of the 'neck' as it runs right across the bottom. I know the rim is more than 10-3/4", the ID of the tension hoop is 11". It looks like 10-15/16" with the head on, but I'll know better tomorrow when I take it apart.

Bobby Burns, thank you, I will bear that in mind about the low crown head. I have never had or worked on any kind of archtop tone ring banjo before.

Lazlototh, yes indeed. It's the biggest one I've seen, even in pictures.

Thank you all very much.
Zach

AndrewD - Posted - 04/30/2019:  01:14:52

Put a skin head on it. No worries about diameter and crown height. And it will sound better. Looks Slingerland(ish) to me too. With one of your necks on it (not a slavish copy if it is a Slingerland - they are a tad narrow) it should make a great old time banjo.

maneckep - Posted - 04/30/2019:  04:28:03

Zach,

That pot is from a Harmony banjo from 1920's. I have owned two of them. It was very well made and one of their higher end banjos.

Paul

maneckep - Posted - 04/30/2019:  04:35:59

banjobuyer.com/banjo/17254

Some pics showing the same pot on a complete banjo.

Zachary Hoyt - Posted - 04/30/2019:  04:49:49

AndrewD, thanks, I hadn't thought about putting a skin head on it but I have one on hand and may give it a try.

Maneckep, thank you, that is great information. I'm very glad to know, and it matches perfectly with the one in your link. I had mainly thought of Harmony as the people who made bakelite banjos, but it's nice to know they did other things too.

Zach

ekvin - Posted - 04/30/2019:  07:42:18

You know, that pot is awfully small for the acoustic banjo bass. They should have started with a bhodran. That being said, maybe they were going to use the banjo pot for proof of concept.

Dan Gellert - Posted - 04/30/2019:  08:29:01

If I weren't in the middle of (so far not very successfully) downsizing, I'd think that neck would be an inspiring piece of raw material to have around. The "dowel stick" alone looks like enough wood to make a normal size neck, and the neck itself might be just a bit of whittling away from suitable to a minstrel banjo of Stichter dimensions.

Zachary Hoyt - Posted - 04/30/2019:  10:54:47

Dan Gellert, downsizing is indeed challenging. Like I said in the first post, if anyone would like the neck assembly and is willing to either pick it up here or pay the postage I'll be happy to pass it along. The dowel stick has two bolt holes in it where the block is attached, so the usable part might not be long enough for a neck.

Ekvin, you may be right, it looks like someone was planning to do something and stopped partway for some reason.

I took the pot off the neck and took it apart, it appears to be a veneered block rim. The tone ring is in two parts, the outer has a spun sleeve over a round tone hoop and the inner is a rectangular tone hoop with a bevel on the top outside corner. I'll need to clean up the parts and put it back together with a new head. Now that I can get at the bottom of the rim it seems to be 11" in some areas and as little as 10-15/16" in others, so I think an 11" low crown head will be a good fit for it. I don't know enough about old heads to know what brand it is, or if it's good for anything. It seems to be epoxied in to the flesh hoop, so I guess it probably isn't very old, but it's a bit dirty.
Zach

rcc56 - Posted - 04/30/2019:  11:43:19

Welcome to the wonderful world of restoration.



If you have the time and backbone for it, this is an opportunity to learn how to research and fabricate a correct style replica neck, and learn about the various old fashioned finishes.



Or you can just approach it from what you're already familiar with and set up to do, put your style neck on it, and have done with it.



But we need more folks who are good at true restoration.



I'm just a "keep 'em running" sort of repairman-- I do what I have to to straighten a neck, repair and touch up a crack or seam, replace a guitar bridge, etc. Since I work mostly on old instruments, I try to re-do things with the glues and finishing materials that were originally used when the instrument was built. I use a lot of hide glue, shellac, and nitro. I'm always happy when one of my repairs is hard to detect.  I wish that would happen more often.  "A man's got to know his limitations."

Edited by - rcc56 on 04/30/2019 11:47:20

ekvin - Posted - 04/30/2019:  11:58:23

In my eyes, that thing is definitely an acoustic bass project. If you have an acoustic bass to cannibalize, you can use the parts to create something far worse and more wonderful than it was before.

Zachary Hoyt - Posted - 04/30/2019:  15:12:24

Rcc56, I have great respect for people like you and Bob Smakula and others who restore and repair old instruments. My skill set (such as it is) is aimed more toward building new instruments. About 1/3 of the custom jobs that I get are to make a new neck for an old banjo pot, so it's something I do pretty often. Since what I do doesn't preclude the owner putting the original neck back on instead, if they have the original neck, I don't feel much compunction about making something that is different. If this pot still had its neck and it was at all repairable I would fix it, but I don't have the backbone to make a replica Harmony neck. It would involve learning several new things, which would be interesting but since I don't have the understanding that even original Harmony banjos are very desirable or sought after I don't think it would be worth the time for me at this point. I'm certainly not going to try to make a MOTS fretboard and peghead overlay, that would be way beyond my pay grade.

Ekvin, I am sure someone could do something with this neck-like thing, but I can't imagine all of the details.

Zach

rcc56 - Posted - 04/30/2019:  16:23:47

I wouldn't be compelled to make a pearloid fretboard either. Not even if the pearloid you can get these days looked right, which it doesn't.

But I might try and reproduce a peghead shape, heel shape, or an inlay pattern, though.

At the same time, I'm getting to the point where I would be content to let someone younger take on such a project instead. The house is paid off, Medicare is in sight, and I have a moderate teaching schedule.

I do hope that some of the younger folks will take an interest in restoration. Us old dogs aren't going to be around forever.

Zachary Hoyt - Posted - 04/30/2019:  17:00:17

Certainly I could try to replicate a peghead and heel shape, and maybe inlay if it wasn't too involved. I have a stack of 20 or more peghead templates that I've used, most of them I drew by hand from online pictures when someone said "I want one that looks like that", and adding another is always handy in case someone wants one like it later. The nice thing about hand drawing the template is that it makes it easy to adapt the design to a wider nut or whatever other size parameters the customer wants, and still get something that looks mostly like what they had in mind.
Zach

Fathand - Posted - 05/01/2019:  09:00:08

Looks Slingerlandish to me, particularly the shoes, hex headed bolts and the smaller diameter rim. The tension hoop plating does not seem to match the rest but it maybe was just polished better. Maybe Slingerland built it for another Company?

As for the hoop pulled down so far, does it have a 1/4" brass or steel hoop on top of the rim? Slingerland often used steel. If it is missing, adding one would raise the hoop up off the shoes.

Have you considered using that big chunk of maple to make your own neck, maybe 2 necks?

Zachary Hoyt - Posted - 05/01/2019:  09:45:14

The pot is a dead ringer for the one on the banjo in the link maneckep posted, so I am sure he is right and that it is a higher end (non-Bakelite) Harmony. I have thought about using the wood to make my own neck, but I don't get much call for plain maple and the headstock shape is not really my kind of thing. I might use it to make bridge blanks, it looks well aged and seems to be hard maple from what I can tell. I'd get a lot of bridges out of that thing, if I go that route, but I'd be happy to send it to someone who might want it for what it is, if such a person exists.
Zach

mike gregory - Posted - 05/01/2019:  20:16:43

If you're able to calculate the oversized package cost for mailing from your place to ZIP code 53024, I've got just enough space to squeeze one more Very Odd Item into my humble abode.

E-mail me the $$ figure, and I'll snail-mail you a perfectly good  check, or, if you prefer, a money order.

ekvin - Posted - 05/02/2019:  09:15:19

kickassbass.co.uk/Images/Mahog...ogany.jpg


So, here's what I think they were driving at. You are missing the tuners, a Bass Bridge, and the tailpiece. What kind of actual bass you could get out of that pot... is debatable!

pickincat - Posted - 05/02/2019:  17:48:44

That neck would be hard to work with. It looks like a 'blank' a mass producer would have in the warehouse curing to see if it was going to warp or will hold up. A raw piece of wood that needs more work than meets the eyes.

mike gregory - Posted - 05/06/2019:  11:28:02

It has met my eyes, since Mr. Hoyt has shipped it to me.

Peghead is too small for 4 standard bass tuners, and the neck is profiled for a 5th string.

Fingerboard surface is radiused.

Wonder if the original  goal was to make a cello banjo, not a bass.

Anyway, my hat's off to the gracious Mr. H.

I will think for a while, see what  amusing ideas float to the surface of the Swamp of Chaos which fills my skull.