The Scroll Shop (Ed of H's Shop Thread)

[edwardofhuncote]

Today's Episode; Paddle Faster!

This late 1800's S.S. Stewart five-string is a real treat. Most of the time when I get a 130+ year-old banjo in to work on, it's a bag of mixed parts that gets hung on a wall somewhere for nostalgic art. This one is 98% all there, and will be completely playable when I'm done. I think the tuning pegs are replacements, one of them is mismatched and certainly is, but three of them are old. Very old. The serial number stamped into the neck's dowelstick even matches the one in the spun-oved hoop. Look at the extreme play-wear in the fingerboard. It took a long time to do that.

I fixed some tear-out at the fifth-string nut last night, then stripped the pot assembly down this morning... I'm cleaning up the hardware right now. Years, a century worth of tarnish on the nickel-plated brass. Reassembling, maybe tomorrow.

The nameplate reads; American Princess... charming. I wish she could tell me a story. 

[pauldo]

That is cool.

[edwardofhuncote]

Got the pegs mounted back on the headstock. I think it's cute how one of them doesn't match the other three. I put it where the fourth string winds on purpose. (4th is a heavy, wound drone string, octave below 2nd) Had to do some color matching to get the 5th string peg knob to look right. Sealed the color in with some lacquer.

Unfortunately, the 5th string hole and nut needed a fair amount of repair... I have filled it in, and will refit the friction peg to seat in the tapered ream tomorrow.

There's always tomorrow...

[David Houck]

Neat project.

[edwardofhuncote]

Todays Chapter: Final Assembly.

I had a fair amount of filling and filing to do to refit the fifth-string peg into place. This is ordinarily a friction fit. The existing hole was so worn that the splines on the peg shaft would not grip anymore, so I built up the inner surface with epoxy and wood dust, used an old peg for a mold, and let the stuff cure around it. The peg pressed right in and snugged tight.

The neck of a dowel-stick banjo is kind of a neck-through design... the way it is secured is very simple. There are two wooden wedges that are tapped in between this brass retainer that is screwed to the stick, and there is an endbolt that threads into the end of the stick, through the wall of the hoop. This endbolt also acts as a mount bracket for the tailpiece. I tried to picture each part of this mechanism. 

Finally, strings. Per customer request, I strung this one with nylon classical strings... which requires a slipknot to be looped around a post on the tailpiece then held as the string is tightened around each peg. (yeah, it's incredibly tedious...)

All done. It really turned out nice. I'll return it to the store in a couple days, after the strings are done stretching out.

[David Houck]

Looks much nicer now!

[edwardofhuncote]

Returned the restored 'American Princess' banjo to Fret Mill Music this afternoon, and while there, a gentleman came in with a 1930's Gibson L-00, had been in his wife's family since WW2, needed restringing... yeah... I had a few minutes to spare for him. That guitar was light as feather, and sounded so dry and woody. I swear a ghost flew outta' the soundhole.

*and I'm having dinner tomorrow evening with my buddy and mentor Ward Elliott, after which we will discuss the next phase for the Martin D-12-20 conversion. It's been a while since we did a meet-up and catch-up.

[edwardofhuncote]

It's been almost a year since I laid Honeytone #28 aside and moved on. I was thinking about something Mica said the other day about "reactive building" though, and making the best of an oops. So I made a little plaque to remind me, and then I grafted yet another piece of cherry to the heel of the neck on #28. Drilled, and set the lag bolts. It's ready for refinishing now. One night later this week, maybe the weekend.  I have another spray job to do. Probably do both at the same time.

[pauldo]

The American Princess turned out great.  Saw an interesting program on PBS about musical instruments.  One of the highlights was Stelling Banjos.  They dove into the history of banjos and showed some older fretless ones.

[edwardofhuncote]

My mentor Ward worked for Geoff Stelling for a time, building the Stelling family of mandolins. It's funny; of the five guys who have built mandolins for Stelling, I've known three of them well. Honeytone banjos #1 and #2 were made with Stelling castings and hardware, and by a weird coincidence, the retrofitted shell of #27 (also currently in the shop) I think may have been a Stelling block construction.

Small world. Geoff was way ahead of his time, and really lead the way for small shops to become mainstream, at least in our little circle of influence. In his time, you either played a Gibson or a Japanese copy of one, and the imported copies were better than the Kalamazoo factory was making in the 70's, quite honestly. Stellings got a reputation for being a being a fine, handmade instrument very quickly.

These folks are scratch-building banjos on the next level- https://ozarkbanjo.com

[cozmik_cowboy]

Somewhere on here way back when is a link I posted to a documentary on open-back banjo builders; they spotlighted a number of them, Stelling being the biggest.  It was quite interesting.   At this temporal remove, I can, alas, think of nary a hint of what I called the thread so as to facilitate searching.

Peter (who would like to respectfully mention that other fora he frequents have a function under "Profile" that lists every thread you started; mods?)

[edwardofhuncote]

Coz, I have had the best luck finding things by using the 'Advanced Search' feature, and searching for a really specific word (for instance, "Stelling", or "Honeytone") posted by my username.

[cozmik_cowboy]

Huh - I had never noticed the "Advanced Search" before; as a thanks, Greg, here's the video!  (I remembered wrong, it's a preview to one of 2 documentaries - builders east & west of the Father Of Waters; now I need to go see if I can find the whole things.)

https://vimeo.com/39630789

Peter

[adriaan]

Somewhere on here way back when is a link I posted to a documentary on open-back banjo builders; they spotlighted a number of them, Stelling being the biggest.  It was quite interesting.   At this temporal remove, I can, alas, think of nary a hint of what I called the thread so as to facilitate searching.

Peter (who would like to respectfully mention that other fora he frequents have a function under "Profile" that lists every thread you started; mods?)

Actually there is just that: Profile > Show Posts > Topics.

[cozmik_cowboy]

Somewhere on here way back when is a link I posted to a documentary on open-back banjo builders; they spotlighted a number of them, Stelling being the biggest.  It was quite interesting.   At this temporal remove, I can, alas, think of nary a hint of what I called the thread so as to facilitate searching.

Peter (who would like to respectfully mention that other fora he frequents have a function under "Profile" that lists every thread you started; mods?)

Actually there is just that: Profile > Show Posts > Topics.

Thanks, Adriaan!

Peter