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

[edwardofhuncote]

My Ol' Man came by to impart some technical advice and hang out in the Scroll Shop this afternoon... see, I've been tinkering with banjos again lately. It was about this time last year that I had Honeytone #28 just minutes away from complete when stupidity struck. I tried to salvage the mess I made twice, and finally just threw in the towel. I was too frustrated to even look at it anymore. At about the same time, I had old #27 in the shop for a couple repairs to the neck, loose binding, and the fifth-string nut needed replacement. Something went weird with the guy, and he wanted to part out the pot assembly for the money, and gave us back the neck and resonator in the deal. So #27 was basically deconstructed and decommissioned... incomplete, homeless.

Tangentially, I was recently gifted a bunch of lumber (nice wood), parts, hardware, and... lo-n-behold, a pefect 11" maple block rim, already turned to the specs I needed to put her back together.

And the mess I made of #28 has been rectified, some refinishing and reassembling to do. Plenty of slips between the tongue and the lips, but I hope for these two to hit the mean streets in early Spring, 2023. Both are spoken for. Then I'll start on #29.

This is just a temporary assembly, to make sure stuff fit together correctly, and that geometrically/mathematically it was going to work. It'll be completely disassembled and rebuilt-reborn over the next few weeks, all new hardware, all except for the oil finish, which is remarkably good. Ill touch it up and buff it out. Man, it feels good to see this one back in one piece!

(if you look on the bench in the background there, the other two necks for #28 and future #29, a short-scale, are laying next to each other...)

[pauldo]

Very attractive.

[David Houck]

The figuring on the back looks like a nebula.

[rv_bass]

Wow, nice work!

[edwardofhuncote]

The figuring on the back looks like a nebula.

It does... maybe why the 4-point star motif got in my head?

#26 built right before this one had a 4-point star inlay pattern too, but it was different. It's been so long that I can't remember exactly what the original inspiration was, only what order my ideas happened in. I still have my original drawings in the dusty old file, so they are still there to reproduce, though those two banjos are long gone. #26 and #27 were both completed in 2011, but the design phase was well before that. #99-25 went to a Tugboat Captain on Virginia's Eastern shore, and hasn't been seen or heard from since. It was piano black, with ivoroid bindings, and the inlay, like her maple sunbursted sister #26, was made of reclaimed ivory piano keys. I've used that stuff a lot. A friend of mine works on pianos.

The long and short of it... I guess I had a thing for 4-point stars in the early late-90's/early-2000's. And apparently I was growing out of an art-deco torch phase. Which coincidentally is when I drew #28.

[cozmik_cowboy]

In a drawer in my filing cabinet, I have a sketch of a sun similar to that star.  Mine has 4 smaller rays betwixt the long ones, and they are all wavy; has the same circle in the middle.
Should I ever, by some miracle, find funding for my Honey Tone banjitar, we shall speak further on the matter, eh?

Peter (who also digs the living crap out of that torch fretboard)

[edwardofhuncote]

It's time to quit while I'm ahead, and go for a walk.

Honeytone #27 update-

All the parts to complete it have now arrived, and I'll be working on it very soon. It's going to a very good home, I think a permanent one. This final time, it will have a pot assembly with a hoop that is of a block construction rather than a 3-ply one. It will have a 1/4" brass hoop tonering suspended at the tapered peak of this shell, which is our standard fare. What isn't standard is that block construction. I'll take a few pictures before finishing, so you can see what I mean by this. All the hardware is nice new shiny nickel-plated brass. I am very happy with what we were able to source, give these strange times. Stay tuned for more.

Honeytone #28 update-

I was able to remix and reshoot the finish, saturating the area where the grafted heel repair is. You have to really know what to look for to see it. I added an ivoroid heelcap, then another thin veneer of Macassar ebony over it to match the headstock. I'm pretty happy with the way it has turned out. If. I. Can. Just. Not. Screw. It. Up. AGAIN!

And here's another little side project-

This guitar started life just last year in C.F. Martin's Navajoa, Mexico factory, as a DC-X2 E, a Dreadnought Cutaway, X-series 2 in Ziricote high-pressure laminate, with onboard Fishman electronics. It had a solid spruce top, which unfortunately got... uhhh... busted. So someone got a new guitar, and I got a super cheap project. I fixed the top where it was broken from the outer edge, glued the crack, reglued a brace. Then I started thinking. I just turned a Martin 12-string into a 6 and got away widdit... what if I turned a 6-string into a 4-string bass...?

Turns out, a Martin acoustic bass bridge is exactly the same footprint as their guitar bridge, and the E-G string spacing is the same too. D'Addario makes a set of nylon core strings gauged for micro-scale basses. (they're meant for the Taylor GS mini bass, which is 23.5", but are plenty long enough for a Martin D. at 25.4")


So while I had the spray bottle loaded... guess whut? 
 

[David Houck]

I know pretty much nothing about acoustic guitars.  For this guitar to bass transition, is the significant difference in string tension a concern?  It looks like those bass strings have much less pull than acoustic guitar strings generally do.

[pauldo]

😎

[edwardofhuncote]

Much less I think, Dave. I had these same strings on an Ibanez "Parlor Bass", and they still felt a bit floppy at a 25" scale. They sounded fine acoustically, and they put enough pressure on the undersaddle piezo pickup to work, so I am hoping the extra almost half-inch of pull will make it work even better on this Martin. But I don't know. We'll find out in a week or so. I said they were nylon core, but I am not sure about that either. I may have gotten them confused with T-I Acousticores, which are. Whatever their composition, they are designed for a micro-scale bass standard tuning.

[cozmik_cowboy]

According to D'Addario, they have a "multi-filament core"; it doesn't specify filaments of what.

Peter

[edwardofhuncote]

Side project; a Birthday Present, for Victoria of Derby. Maple, Purpleheart, Jatoba, and Brass.

(it's a hook-ety thing to hang keys and things on...)

[David Houck]

Nice!

[edwardofhuncote]

A weird set of circumstances has brought one of our earliest banjos back close to home... this is Old #8, started in 1989 and completed and signed in 1990 by my Dad. It was later serialized like the rest, #90-08.

I cut the inlay for this one from some black MOP shells found in a gift shop at the beach. It was also one of my first sunbursts. Dad carved that resonator and neck from solid maple that was sourced locally, from McFeely's Hardware, in Lynchburg, Virginia. I still have some! He bent the rim around a hot stovepipe. All the gold, engraved hardware was NOS, Gibson All-American. It was the first Honeytone banjo to have the "honeybee" logo. It kinda' became our trademark after this...

We haven't seen this banjo in 20 years.

[pauldo]

Very pretty,