'Mountain Minstrel' Fretless Banjo

At long last I've finished my latest home made mountain banjo, a short 'A' scale fretless in American black walnut.
I recorded it using a half decent condenser mic to try and do the sound justice.
'Ingredients': wildly figured American black walnut, ebony binding, brass finger plate and tailpiece (converted from an old door plate), brass position dots, aluminium tone ring (cut down from a plant pot), ebony fiddle pegs, goatskin head, Nylgut strings, gunstock oil finish, inlaid 200m year old fossil ammonite. The bridge is carved from the same walnut as the rest of the banjo and topped with ebony.
I thought the swirl of the ammonite form would make a nice soundhole design for the back too.
The head/pot assembly is (as on my last banjo) self contained and simply drops into the body, although this time I've included a rudimentary tensioning system using a sewn in cable and cable ties.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• mountain
• minstrel
• fretless
• banjo
• homemade
• traditional
• appalachian
• woodwork

[sparkyfiddle]

Hi Sergio, sorry for the late reply. The pot assembly consists of the top part of an aluminium flower pot (cut to the same depth as the recess in the banjo). The skin of the head has a circular flexible metal cable (picture wire) sewn in. The skin is first soaked and then attached and tensioned using electrical cable ties which pass through evenly spaced holes in the skin and small holes drilled through the bottom of the pot. The ties draw the cable down towards the bottom of the pot. John

[patchbod]

WHAT IS THIS TUNE!!!!!!!!!

[sparkyfiddle]

@patchbod It's an oldtimey tune called Lonesome John

[KingMilesTagoyet]

What a gorgeous banjo. Beautifully played too. Cheers. Paul

[oscarwoodtools]

I love your banjo. I am trying to make one but I am having trouble in the design of the drop-in pot. Can you please help by explaining how you did yours. thanks Sergio

[rpashoukos]

Wow!, looks and sounds great, I dare say a masterpiece....

[grenadezeroone]

dang that thing is gorgeous

[Hikikomori013]

I just finished making a banjo (also with a drop in pot) so I can sympathize with the "At long last" part. It's such a good feeling to finally have the strings on and hear it for the first time, isn't it?

It's an exceptionally handsome instrument. I especially like the ammonite cutouts on back and the fern scroll peg head. It looks as good as it sounds.

[clockguy2]

nice job!

[G1le]

@sparkyfiddle It sounds a bit like Old Joe Clark. Do you know if they are related tunes?