Early in the month I made a mahogany squareneck resonator guitar and when it got warm enough I put the finish on that and the archtop guitar and chicken-head fiddle that had been waiting. They are all shown on their respective pages. My first custom project for the month was a practice koto, the same width and curve as a real koto but only two feet long instead of six or so. I strung it with string trimmer line. I have no knowledge of kotos, but this one didn’t sound like much. On the other hand it wasn’t required to be mellifluous, as it was just for practicing without having to carry the big one around.

My last custom projects were two necks, one a tenor for an ODE pot and the other a 5 string for a small Gibson pot. The customer for the 5 string sent me a lot of inlay to install on the fretboard, and also a pre-inlaid peghead overlay. The tenor was a nice simple design.

Along with the two necks I also made a C scale banjo out of some of the casket-offcut mahogany that I still have left. It’s shown on the Banjos page. Right now I’m getting a couple of stock banjos ready for finish and should have them listed on Monday. There’s been a little flurry of four stock banjo sales in the past week, so I’m catching up a bit on that. I have four custom banjos on the agenda for March, and a couple more stock banjos. I haven’t had an 8 banjo month in over a year.

I’ve mostly caught up on work in the house, though there are still some details to be completed. The door trim is now all in place, except for the frame around the attic ladder cover. I finally got the bookshelves built that fit between the studs above the bed in my room, so I could unpack all the boxes of books in the attic. It’s really nice to have easy access to them again. In the kitchen I got the drawers and cupboard doors made that go under the sink and its counter. It’s much nicer to have more things in drawers so they’re easier to get out. This was my first time using full extension drawer slides and I am now a believer and will use them for any future drawer projects.