I made 5 banjos in May, the first one to be completed was #148.  It is a 12″ banjo with a wood tone ring, made from a variety of woods.

Next came #149, a walnut banjo with a Tubaphone tone ring and a bracket band.  The customer did all the inlay work and drew the picture on the head.  I learned from this one that it’s important (at least with wood bindings) to bind the fretboard and flatten it before the inlay work is done.  I had some difficulty with getting the frets to behave, but the customer was kindly able to resolve the problems after he received the banjo.

My last custom build in May was #150, my first time putting together all of the parts to make a bluegrass resonator banjo.  The customer sent the hardware from a Recording King resonator banjo and had me make new wooden parts for it.

Banjos #151 and #152 are both cherry short-scale banjos, and they are shown on the Banjos page.  I started making a new octave mandolin in May but ran out of time, so I hope to perhaps get it completed in June.  I also have some custom necks and a custom banjo to build in June, and a few stock banjos.