This month was a busy one in the shop. Banjos 273-277 were all stock banjos and were completed in the first half of the and are all listed on the Banjos page. It’s nice to have a cello banjo in stock again after almost a year without one. Banjo #278 was an all black banjo, made from ash with Fiebing’s Leather Dye and an ebony fretboard.

Banjo #279 was a 12″ curly maple with walnut trim. This banjo and #276 are the first two I have made with some curly maple I bought in Tupper Lake last summer. It’s got nice color variation in it and I have enough to build quite a few instruments.

Banjo #280 was one where the customer sent all the hardware and a piece of drum shell and I made the other wooden parts and put it all together. It has various features that are not what I usually build, but it will help me to avoid paradigm paralysis, which is something I used to hear about from a friend who is now late. This banjo was shipped unfinished, as this customer likes to do his own finishing.

Banjo #281 is a curly maple 11″ with a tunneled 5th string. This was my first time making a fretboard with a compound radius. This one goes from 12″ at the nut to 16″ at the heel, so it’s not drastic, but it was a good experiment and now I will feel able to make these if asked again.

I’ve got a wood topped banjo, two 12″ wood tone ring banjos and an 11″ slot head that are all awaiting setup and should be completed sometime this week. I put Tru Oil on them yesterday while we had a north wind so I could do it in the attic without the fumes getting blown back inside. My plans for April include an octave mandolin that is spoken for, and some more stock banjos and other instruments depending on what the custom schedule shakes out to be.