Recession-Era banjo project underway!

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Posted by DIV on Saturday, April 11, 2009

July 11: GOT IT! Look here: http://www.banjohangout.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=152608

July 7: my banjo is ready to ship!!!

June 8: the neck, and all other parts safely arrived in the hands of my luthier who will take a couple of weeks finishing everything and getting everything together. I can't wait!!!

June 4: after lot's of delays and appologies, the parts arrived from the plating company in very fine order. I distressed the hoop and flange with some light steel-wooling. I spend 2 hours micro etching (mini sandblaster) the underside of the flange to make it look authentic. Then I sent all the parts, neck, tone ring and case off to my luthier who's just about done finishing the resonator. He'll need a couple weeks. It's all coming together!

May 22: Nope, Whitman needs another week because it takes more work to strip the old plating off my flange and hoop before they can re-plate with Chrome....

May 18: Whitman Plating Company says that the parts will be ready to ship by week's end.

May 14: My resonator is done and it's being shipped to my luthier! I'm waiting to hear back from the plating company about my order...

May 6th Update:

Steve Gill's almost done with my resonator and it'll be shipping out next week. My parts are being chrome plated by Whitman Company and they should also be done very soon. My TT rim is in the hands of my luthier waiting for everthing else to arrive. I've got the same exact Dannick Tone ring (#38) from my prewar 4...

It wasn't fun to have to sell my last prewar (1933 TB4), but I'm excited to be putting together a low-budget version of my favorite prewar banjo: a replica RB4-- I call it my RRB4. As much as I love the old prewars, it didn't make sense to me to spend so much on a banjo and then not use all the original parts (neck, tone ring etc). So I'm headed up a low-budget, high quality salute to the prewar RB-4's. I'm using a Dannick tone ring (the same one that was in my TB4) on a TT Cox rim. Steve Gill is building me a prewar style resonator. I'm using the wonderful neck I had made for my TB4, and various chrome-plated new and spare new-ish parts. Keep posted. It should be done by this summer (?)

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