May started off with a batch of 4 banjos, a wood topped banjo, and a neck. The neck was a walnut tenor neck with a radiused ebony fretboard to replace one that had been accidentally ordered too narrow at the fretboard end.
Wood topped banjo #6 was completely designed, aesthetically, by the customer, and I just put it together and figured out a couple of the details. It is cherry and walnut with a western red cedar top. The customer suggested an X brace for the soundboard, instead of the usual single transverse brace, and I needed a way to access the nuts for the bolt on neck, and for the customer to have interior access to add a pickup, so I made the back removable, mounted with screws.
Banjo #452 was a custom A scale with a 10″ pot, a scoop, and the same wood choices as #403, mahogany and rosewood.
Banjos 453 and 454 are 11″ and 12″ cherry stock instruments, and #455 is an experimental banjo with a brass rim and walnut neck. All three are shown on the Banjos page.
My last project of the month, which didn’t get completed till June 3, was a mahogany tenor resonator guitar with curly maple binding, radiused ebony fretboard, and a Beard cone and spider. This is only my second roundneck resonator, after a gap of maybe 8 years since the first one. It was a fun project, and luckily I had all the parts already on hand in the shop. The body was made on the same L-0 mold that I use for octave mandolins and small archtop guitars, and I needed the smaller body size to accommodate the shorter scale length. .
June is starting with two more custom guitars, with two custom banjos also to be built sometime soon. My stock octave mandolin building plans are on hold while I do these custom orders but that’s fine, and I will hope to get to them sometime.