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

[edwardofhuncote]

I haven't stopped thinking about cheesecake for a few days... but I did finally finish up this old banjo. 



This one was a challenge. And it really deserves better still, but I have it back to a playable state for the first time in so many years no one can remember. It has no brand or maker anywhere but for certain it's from the northeastern United States, around the late 1800's, just based on the hardware and general construction method. What's unusual about this one is that not a single hook or nut is mismatched. I think it's probably been leaned in a corner of a very dirty place for decades. Note the extreme wear on the back of the headstock. It had no tuners, so I've fitted a set of Grover friction pegs. It came with some kind of mechanical friction pegs, but they were long gone. These Grovers were zero-mod. 

As mentioned in an earlier post, I saved the old calfskin head by gluing some strips of hide around the edges, and using extreme care when remounting it over the rim. Just to be safe, I also ordered an 11" synthetic hide head for it, in case my plan failed. I'll use it another time. All 38 hooks, nuts, brackets, screws, and washers had to be pulled off and soaked in solvent, then cleaned and reassembled to the shell. That is a lot of parts to keep up with, but I have this plastic dish with compartments for that. (I think it was originally meant for keeping chips and dips apart... 🙄) 

The mail-lady brought my strings yesterday... they're Aquila "Nylgut", a synthetic gut string. True gut strings are ridiculously expensive and harder even to deal with than the old hide heads are. These cost $11 and sound great. They're a little bit tricky to tie on if you've never done it. Makes you appreciate modernity.

It turned out really nice. I put waaaaay more time in this job than I expected to, (or estimated the quote) so I'll end up eating a few hours, but it was kinda' worth it to see and hear the finished job.

[cozmik_cowboy]

A doff of the chapeau toward you, Sir: Your knack for saving old instruments makes you An Inspiration To Us All!

Nice work, once again.  I don't see the tie-off as a problem - but then I, Eagle Scout that I am, have known a timber hitch for almost 60 years now, and own a classical guitar.

And i have a mountain dulcimer with friction pegs; I'd have said "To blazes with zero-mod, I say; give me something with gears!"

But again good work, Greg.

Peter

[peoplechipper]

I was a boy scout too, and that banjo looks easier than using the little loops and the hooks of a modern banjo, and mandolins; I hate stringing those things...

[edwardofhuncote]

I was a boy scout too, and that banjo looks easier than using the little loops and the hooks of a modern banjo, and mandolins; I hate stringing those things...

I got my WEBELOS Badge, and was working through the Arrow of Light adventures when we moved away and I just never got back into a Scouting program. That relocation was kinda' the end for me. I could not tell you what I was doing today, but by that age (11-12?) I was already very outdoorsy, pretty handy in a shop too. Within a couple years the Ol Man had me working on banjos rather than whittling the Pinewood Derby cars.

I'm with ya' on restringing mandolins... they're just a PITA from the jump. I got ambitious the other day; same client I did the banjo for had an old KayKraft mandolin that the tuner buttons were crumbled on. It needed some other repairs too. When restringing it, I suddenly got the idea, hey... I'll put new strings on my Gibson too! Guess the thinking was, if I was going to blow an afternoon, might as well knock out both of them.

I'm kinda' particular about how I wind strings on. It's a thing... can't help it.

[lbpesq]

I was a Star scout, two merit badges away from Life, and had just been elected to the Order of the Arrow when I left scouting behind in favor of electric guitar and girls.  Never looked back!

Bill, tgo

[cozmik_cowboy]

I was a Star scout, two merit badges away from Life, and had just been elected to the Order of the Arrow when I left scouting behind in favor of electric guitar and girls.  Never looked back!

Bill, tgo

I never saw a conflict betwixt those; I was a teenage Scout variously singing and humping gear for rock bands playing for all the beer we could drink (yeah - aged 14-17, that was our usual pay; let's hear it for hillbilly bars!).
Smoked my first joint at Scout camp.
Stayed in the troop, but also joined an Explorer post because they had girls - and we went camping with them!

Peter 

[edwardofhuncote]

El-Kabong strikes again...




This one came in yesterday afternoon after a mishap with gravity and inertia. It'll be okay. Mahogany snapped a nice clean break. I'll have to make a curved caul to fit that concave volute, but it'll go right back together. The hard part will be touch-up on the finish, especially at the endgrain. 

[Artgeckko]

oomph!
looking forward to updates.

[pauldo]

Just tape?
No clamping?

[edwardofhuncote]

Operation Squeeze... just cauls, clamps and glue. I put a little sheet of wax paper between them. 




After the clamps came off and the glue cleaned up, time to start trying to make it look better. This was about as ugly of a break as I've had in a while. There's material missing from the headstock face, leaving a small gap in the ebony and some of the pearl too. 

I'm using black CA glue to fill the blackened area, and clear for the pearl with some pearl dust packed into it. (if it were a bigger chunk missing I would just cut another piece) 







After filing off flush, a little wet-sanding, and I see a couple dimples that need filling. 



Rinse & Repeat, then wet-sand again...


That'll cover with some clear. Touching up the mahogany will be harder. The crack aligned just fine, but there's an edge about the thickness of the finish you can feel. I'll have to take that off down to the wood. 

[edwardofhuncote]

Slow going. I'm dropfilling the crack with some brown tinted lacquer. I'll let this cure, shrink, then repeat.

Once its as level as I think it'll get, I'll load up the airbrush with some mahogany brown tinted lacquer and shade in the volute area. After that I'll shoot some clear over to seal and rub it out.


That's the plan anyway. Many a slip betwixt a cup and a lip. I did get my airbrush out and test it first. I usually don't remember to do that.

I spent most of the day working on this bass fingerboard... planing, scooping, and polishing. You just gotta' get comfortable and get busy. It's a long day scrubbing Dalbergia into fine powder.

[cozmik_cowboy]

Now that there's a pruddy slice of rosewood, to be sure!

Peter

[jazzyvee]

what those strange shape on the finger board grain near where the body and neck join. Are they artifacts of the picture or something else?

[edwardofhuncote]

what those strange shape on the finger board grain near where the body and neck join. Are they artifacts of the picture or something else?

They are repairs I made to a 'recycled' fingerboard. 




Recycled, meaning, it came from another unrepairable bass, one I had stashed away in my other shed so badly damaged that it wasn't worth fixing but still had usable parts, like this old Brazilian rosewood fingerboard. (I robbed the tuning machines off it last year to save another one) Trouble was, someone had drilled holes and run a long bolt through the neck to repair a broken heel... through the fingerboard and all. You may be able to see, there were also a couple more screw holes in the end of the fingerboard extension out over the body I needed to plug. But the main thing was, it was dead straight, with only minimal wear. I donated it to the project. 

The bass I'm working on here is a 1938 Kay, one of the very first. The neck was badly bowed when it came in... so much relief that it was very difficult to play. It's original 'ebonized' maple fingerboard had been planed so thin from years of hard use that it was providing no strength at all. I spent a month straightening it in a press with heat and moisturizing after peeling that board off. Then glued on a maple veneer cap (much like the sacrificial layer on our Alembics) and planed it perfectly smooth to provide a gluing surface for the replacement fingerboard. This also makes future removal an easier process. If you scroll back up and look at the pics above you can see this layer.



Anyway... yes - good eye... those are little inlays of rosewood. I keep little scraps of it around for jobs like this. This plank of wood is unobtainable anymore. I could have just bought a new bass fingerboard, but this one actually came from another Kay bass, only a couple years newer. 1940 I think. This one's going to a music school in the next county over. 

[cozmik_cowboy]

Am I seeing an effect of the light, or does the board have an asymmetrical radius?  If so, is the common practice on doghouses?

Peter