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July instruments
Banjo #117 was a custom ash 12″ with a Whyte Laydie type tone ring and a Dobson heel. #118 was a stock banjo, it can be seen on the Banjos page. My last two projects were in the works at once. Fiddle #22 is a cherry chicken head and is shown on the Fiddles page,
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June instruments
June was another low-production month since I spent a number of evenings working on the roof instead of in the shop, but now the roof job is done and I am back up to full speed, such as it is. My first June job was a custom 5+1 neck fitted to a very unusual old
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May banjos
This May was not one of my more productive months in the workshop, but sometimes that’s how it goes. My first project was banjo #113, a custom walnut short scale with a WL/Electric type tone ring. My other completed project was banjo #114, which was a custom curly maple A scale with hickory accents and
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April instruments
I am very late writing this update, but I can still remember a lot of what happened in April. My first project was banjo #111, which is another walnut C scale and can be seen on the Banjos page. I made two squareneck resonator guitars back in 2014 or so, and the second one
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March instruments
My first jobs in March were continued from the last part of February. I made a mountain dulcimer (#45) and a banjo (#108) from the gym floor wood, for the customer who brought the wood. The dulcimer is a bit of a departure for me as it is the first I have made with a
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February instruments
My first job in February was making a partially fretless neck to fit a client’s pot. This was my first time making and setting up a partially fretless neck. I roughed out a neck and fretboard similar to this a few years ago, but the customer did the final work on that project so I
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January instruments
I started off the year with a couple of unusual (for me) custom jobs. The first was a mandolin made from maple lumber salvaged from an old gym floor which had sentimental significance. It was supplied unfinished. This was my first time working with Adirondack spruce, and my first time installing a pickguard and binding
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December banjos
In December my first project was to build banjo #98 from a walnut board that was supplied by the customer. It came from a tree that was planted by a neighbor of his and blew down in a storm. My next job was to build a replacement for a broken vintage banjo neck. This also
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November instruments
My first project in November was to build a cello banjo, #92. It is shown on the Banjos page. #93 was a custom walnut 10″ C scale banjo with an extra-thin D shaped neck. I used a low profile truss rod to get an 18mm neck depth along the full length. This banjo also has
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October banjos
Banjo #85 was a left handed cherry C scale that I began in late September for a customer and got it done in early October. My next scheduled project was to make a mahogany neck to fit a vintage pot. Then came #86, a walnut 12″ with Whyte Laydie type tone ring. This was a