Tennis Racquet Banjo - tune: Georgia Railroad

HI
Silly to be sure, but fun ? You bet. Loud too!
This is my 2nd take on turning a tennis
racquet into a banjo. This one sounds better
than the first. Salvation Army 50 cent tennis
racket & a few hours of time were all that was
required. The neck/fingerboard is made by sanding
one side of the racquet handle flat. The head is
printing-shop thrown-away mylar super-glued &
stapled to racquet rim.
Head is tensioned by a very simple ring of
1/8" plywood from an old door, pushed tight
with ten small blocks of wood. This tensions
the mylar so nicely that it doesn't come anywhere
near hitting the racquet's cross-strings.
Playing Strings are simply two gauges of fishing
line. 5th string is accomplished by "shorting-out"
the string with a couple of brads.
This is a three-string banjo. All 3 tuning gears
won't fit on the peghead end, so I put two
of them at the opposite end (near the bridge)
Works fine. I have posted an article detailing
how I built this thing - on my webpage at this URL:
http://www.dennishavlena.com/ten-raq-banjo.htm

Category:

Music

Tags:

• banjo
• tennis
• racquet
• three
• string
• stringed
• havlena
• diy
• make
• build
• clawhammer
• mylar