Quickie Christmas present banjo

[Jon Whitney]

Here's my latest effort, a Christmas present for my youngest daughter. She's been picking up my banjos and plucking out tunes so I thought I'd better make her one to call her own. It has the rectangular body and plastic head of my simple box banjos but in larger dimensions (about 12 1/2 by 8 inches) and a 24.5 inch scale length. I thought I'd try something super easy for the inlays - I routed out cavities and filled them with JB WaterWeld - a sort of white opaque epoxy. I was going for a sort of free-hand look. It turned out sort of barely OK- goes to prove that accurate routing is the hardest part of inlaying.

front view

back view

inlays

side view

dowel stick through clear head

[Patrick Hanna]

Jon, nice Christmas present. Is she playing it? Or is she holding out for something big and round and heavy with lots of nickel or gold plating? I think you built a cool little instrument there.

[Jon Whitney]

She's playing it. She's not going to get gold and nickel plating from me - I prefer raw brass. 'Cause it's cheaper.

[Karl Wicklund]

Again, compliments on a fun, quick design.

I've got an *extremely* quickly built version here in my classroom. It's attracted a lot of attention from kids whose eye pop at the fact that genuine music can be made on a this, but that an instrument can be made by - gasp! - an English teacher. One student told me he's been working on scratching out an electric guitar after seeing this. A simple thing, but empowering. Thanks, Jon.

[Bob Francis]

Jon
What did you make the heads with? Looks like a fuh project.
And thanks for the smile Karl

[Karl Wicklund]

Heads were like I've seen on your posts - 2 liter pop bottles. I stumbled across a load of tuners cheap - certainly good enough for this fish-line strung instrument. The wood we salvaged from the wood shop dumpster. I'm hoping to do a small group project with a few interested students at the end of the school year.

[Jon Whitney]

The head on this one is not from a pop bottle as they won't yield enough width (limit is about 6" for 2 liter, 6.5" for 3 liter bottles, whereas this one is about 8" in width). I look for plastic packaging of any item that is big enough for the project I need. PETE (recycle number 1) plastic is preferred. For this banjo, the plastic was the lid from a boxed knife set. It was not stamped with the recycle information so I tested a bit to see if it would shrink. This is important: to test unknown plastics, you need to draw a uniform grid on the plastic sample using a permanent marker (I drew a 5x5 grid of 1/4" squares) and then heat the plastic until it moves around and then stops moving around. Then measure the grid lines to see if they have actually decreased in distance from each other. Often plastic will shrink more in one direction than the other, so take that into account. When in doubt, don't bother using the plastic, find another piece. I first installed another piece on this instrument, but it didn't shrink when heated and I had to pull out all those carpet tacks and re-install a different piece.

PETE plastic has never failed me, but it's hard to tell what a plastic is unless it is stamped with the recycle information. PETE plastic is commonly used for packaging foods so look for good large flat pieces from boxes of salad greens, party trays, or whatever.

The plastic I used on this instrument did not shrink quite as well as I would have liked - I would prefer a tighter head. I'm not sure if it was because of the plastic type, or the size of the head.

Karl, it's good to hear your project worked out so well. I made a uke neck template and routed a uke neck out for another daughter - she's assembling it and we will post pictures when it is done.