April started with four banjos. Banjo #448 was an 11″ fretless curly maple with Blackwood Tek trim, a Whyte Laydie tone ring, and aged brass hardware.
Banjo #449 was an 11″ curly maple and walnut longneck, with ebony trim and a Tubaphone tone ring from Gold Tone. The customer order brass Gotoh guitar tuners and sent them to me.
Banjo #450 was a 16″ curly maple guitar banjo. This is the pot size I usually use for cello banjos, and the customer thought it would be good for a guitar banjo too, since they have lower pitched strings also. This banjo has classical guitar strings and was built to have the same neck size and layout as the customer’s classical guitar, as much as possible. The wooden tailpiece and the foot under the bridge were ideas the customer borrowed from a now-discontinued Deering banjo that he had liked. This banjo looks small in the pictures, but it’s an armful in real life.
Banjo #451 is another Dobson thin rim 12″ walnut banjo, and is shown on the Banjos page.
Next came a batch of two chicken head fiddles, in walnut(#34), and curly maple(#33), because someone bought the only remaining chicken head fiddle I had on hand. I’d like to make a cherry and a mahogany chicken head fiddle soon if time permits. Both these fiddles are shown on the Fiddles page.
My last instrument in April was my first cittern. It was made from cherry and western red cedar, and I used cut down 12 string guitar tuners to get 5 on a plate. This cittern has a 22″ scale length and the sound box is the same as I use for the A style archtop octave mandolins I make. It’s tuned FCGDA, and I made a short but somewhat inadequate video to show what it sounds like.
May is starting with a batch comprising one custom banjo, one custom neck, one custom wood topped banjo, two cherry stock banjos to replace ones sold in April, and an experimental banjo with a brass pot with a WL/Electric tone ring, and a walnut neck.
I got out late in April for a day trip on my bicycle to try the new section of the Adirondack Rail Trail and climb Floodwood Mountain. It was a very nice day, but mostly it’s been cold this spring so I haven’t been out much. Follow the link below if you’d like to see a trip report and pictures from this trip.
