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September banjos and a new mahogany source
September was a bit unusual in that I had no custom work on hand to be done, but I had (and still have) a lot of stock instruments to catch up on restocking. Banjos 401-403 were partly made at the end of August, and completed in September, and 404-408 were made entirely in September. All…
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August banjos
August was another mildly non-productive month in my corner of the world, but I got a little bit of work done and have more to do this month. I started with a batch that included banjo #397, a walnut 11″ with a custom slimmer neck. #398 and 399 are both stock banjos and are shown…
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July banjos and a bouzouki
July in the shop started off with a couple of stock A scale banjos, #394 and 395, followed by a stock 12″ walnut thin rim banjo with a Dobson tone ring, #396. These are all shown on the Banjos page. The only custom project for the month was a bouzouki, built using the mandocello mold…
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June banjos
June was a slow month for me, partly because of training but more because of some kind of summer cold I picked up at training which kept me at a lower speed for a couple of weeks. I saved my energy for training because I didn’t want to have to restart the whole process. I…
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May banjos and a plectrum guitar
May was a busy month with all the trips to Potsdam for fire training, but I still got a few things done in the shop. I somehow failed to post the pictures of the cello banjo neck that I made for a customer’s existing minstrel banjo pot, though I mentioned the project at the end…
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April banjos and distractions
April started off with Banjo #378, which was just the same as #375 except it had a slimmer neck from front to back to make it comfortable for the person who ordered it. Banjos 379 to 382 are all stock banjos and are shown on the Banjos page. Banjo #383 is made from spalted beech…
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March guitars and banjos
March started off with a walnut mandocello and walnut 6 and 12 string dreadnought guitars which wrapped around a bit from the end of February. I am pleased to have finally gotten the 12 string guitar done, and the others were fun too. They are shown on the mandolin and guitar pages respectively. I didn’t…
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February banjos and mandolins
My first project in February was a banjo #371, 12″ curly maple with a wood tubaphone tone ring. Banjo Hangout member dpgetman posted a tutorial on how he built one about 10 years ago, and I used some of his methods, though he was working primarily or a router table and I on a lathe.…
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January banjos and an A style octave mandolin
January was a busy month in the shop this year. The first couple of custom projects were banjo necks. One was a fretless neck to fit banjo #352, which was a stock banjo. The customer wanted to have both fretted and fretless necks for the same pot, so I made a fretless neck and then…
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December banjos and a mini archtop guitar
December started off with a batch of 3 banjos. #361 was an 11″ cherry banjo with a Dobson tone ring and a slightly skinnier neck than I usually build. It was ordered with the measurements the customer thought would be most comfortable. Banjos 362 and 363 were stock walnut 12″ with different tone rings. They…