During the intermission on this bass project, thought I'd share this one around with you guys... a tale of two banjos.
Lately there's been a handful of very early Alembics to pop up here on the forum, and a couple more of what Mica sometimes calls escapees... I guess a few guitars that were clearly built there but on the down-low. I love to see the old ones still getting played out… maybe that's what made me think of it.
Anyway, just by sheer coincidence two of our older banjos, both #91-16 and #91-17 recently showed up back in the shop for minor work and setup... Dad and I built these two practically side-by-side back in 1991, and as far as we know, they've been separate since. Back then we were working out of a little 8' x 12' metal garden shed in my parents backyard. It was an oven in summer and an icebox in winter. We tried an air conditioner once, but between the dust and the pitiful 15 amp circuit the whole shop was on, you could either be reasonably cool, or do work involving power tools, but not both. When there was snow on the roof, once you got some heat going in there, water would condense and rain down on you. Ahh, the good old days.
So way back then, this guy comes over to the shop for Dad to do some setup work on a 1970's GoldStar banjo, a Japanese copy of a Gibson RB-75. At the time it was a considerably better instrument than the genuine article. While there, he saw what would become #91-16 as a work-in-progress and commissioned a new build on the spot. They were finished just a couple weeks apart, literally using the same bottles of stain for the sunburst. I remember this was when I figured out we could build two or three banjos in about the same amount of time, something we have done a few times since.
#91-16 was a "Sweet Sixteen" birthday present for a girl who was a gifted player, but had a bad back injury and needed a lighter-weight instrument. It was pretty fancy too, all the wood was very high grade curly maple, all hardware was gold-plated, and the hand-cut pearl inlays were just something I dreamed up. To cut down on weight, Dad re-designed the shell (drum-like part) for a simple ¼” brass hoop instead of a heavy bell-bronze cast tone ring.
#91-17 was also to be all curly maple, but by contrast outfitted with nickel-plated hardware. The inlay design was by a local artist Esther Davis. She sketched out this wild looking vine inlay that sorta' grew both directions up and down the fingerboard and headstock. It was an absolute nightmare to execute, but somehow we did it. I remember us taking turns cutting all these individual pieces of pearl... it took a couple weeks or something, and inlaying it wasn't much easier. Looking back though, I’m glad we took the challenge. Sometimes you need to test your limits. Something I had totally forgotten about - the resonator on 17 is inlaid with a rosewood Dogwood blossom and our trademark Honeybee. It was the first time I'd ever tried that.
Another little factoid - these were the first two of our banjos to have the new original headstock. (although old #13 eventually was retrofit with one after being unfortunately decapitated) Up until that point, we had simply used modified patterns from other builders, but Dad had doodled this cool asymmetrical shape that reminded him of the early minstrel style banjos. I polished it up with some French curves, and the resulting template is still hanging over my workbench today.
Enjoy the pictures, and stay tuned when we resume our regularly scheduled program...
