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This banjo was built over a couple years in my spare time between building guitars. It's not the most traditional arrangement, but it sounds good and it's got a lot of nice features, such as:
- Dual Action Truss Rod
- Mother of Pearl Inlays and nut
- Five star planetary tuners with ebony knobs
- Elite head
- Clamshell style tailpiece
- Laminated maple and walnut neck with a reverse diamond rosewood headstock veneer with a bubinga overlay
- Bound neck with abalone strips along each side
- Shubb fifth string capo
The resonator is mahogany, and the bottom is carved with a fairly elaborate pattern with three dimensional crossed roses in the center. The metal is to keep the resonator from getting damaged as well as adding to the overall look. It's a nickel brass alloy with that's been nickel plated. All this does mean the banjo's a bit tail heavy, but it doesn't seem to make much difference.
The sides of the resonator are covered in rosewood veneer with ornately carved bubinga overlays around the outside. The top of the resonator looks like a lot of flower petals carved into the bubinga rim. The inside of the resonator was left pretty much the way it was carved, but with a dark stain.
The neck is carved at the heel on both sides with another sort of floral pattern, and the handstop is carved concave. The headstock is curved across the top face and is bolstered where the tuners go through with bubinga disks. Doing it this way allows the headstock to be more flexible. The first three inlays are a crysanthemum and bar inlay that I saw on a couple antique banjos and I really liked. The other inlays are a rose and vine inlay.
The pot is actually a 1960's conquerer banjo pot. It's a 30 bracket MIJ cast aluminum thing. I had a choice of a lot of pots. I even bought one of those sunken wood ones and installed it, but the truth is aluminum really does ring like a bell and it's denser than wood, plus it sounded best with the aluminum pot, so that's what I stuck with. |
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