I spent the first 17 days of January on a batch of 3 banjos. #269 was a walnut 12″ with internal resonator, Whyte Laydie-type tone ring, and a slotted peghead.

Banjos 270 and 271 are stock instruments shown on the Banjos page. In the last couple of weeks of the month I made a cherry chicken head fiddle and a cherry archtop guitar. It was too cold to do any finishing at the end of the month so they are still waiting. In the meantime I have been working on a mahogany squareneck resonator guitar. All of these and a custom banjo neck will be ready for finishing in a couple of days, and I have a couple more necks and a banjo for custom work in February. If time permits I’d also like to also build a flattop acoustic guitar and an octave mandolin in the remainder of the winter, and another fiddle or two. I’ve been out of stock of those things for much too long.

In the house I’ve continued to make a little progress. I got the area under the stairs enclosed, and now we have a coat closet at the high end, a space for the flour and oats barrel on a cart in the middle, and a small cupboard at the bottom and the very top. I’ve also been building some bookshelves so we could unpack most of the 20+ banana boxes of books that were in the attic since August.