After years of making guitars of all types, classical, steelstring,electric,bass, harp etc, I found that there are many more types of instruments out there that are just as exciting to make. I have just completed a banjo ukelele, made entirely of wood, including the head. The power of this small instrument with nylon strings is amazing.People that hear it for the first time burst out into laughter, not because it is comical, but because it takes them by surprise. This instrument has a scale length of 17″, and my next effort will have a scale length of 18″, only because of my customer’s preference. I used spruce for the soundboard and hoop pine for the body and neck. The fingerboard is ringed gidyee. The strings tie on to small brads in the tail of the neck, and rock maple is the wood used for the bridge. I used banjo style friction machine heads for the tuners.

I have made several all wood banjos with nylon strings. They too are a great tool for a musician to have in their arsenal. They can be useful for having as a practise instrument if their ‘real’ banjo is too loud in certain situations.They are much lighter than their counterparts and are very comfortable to hold. Their quality of sound allows it to hold its own in a small ensemble. A contact pickup in under the soundboard would be a good way to amplify this instrument.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 9:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.