my first adventure into inlay

As i currently have no commissions i am working on my own personal banjo. Itll be a 12" maple pot with a rosewood tonering and ebony rim cap and a walnut neck.

A chance to try out a few new techniques... one of which is a peghead inlay of a European house sparrow using various woods and mother of pearl.

short scale gourd banjo

I just finished this cute little gourd banjo. Its a neck i made a while ago for a tack head which never really sounded great. So i decided to fit it to a gourd... much better. The gourd as been reinforced with fibreglass and sounds super sweet. its currently tuned to standard G.

It Is for sale for £400 contact me at flatfootjohnny@hotmail.com

1st post of 2015

I finished 2014 with a lefty "Old Timer" mountain banjo and a walnut mountain banjo, and i started a short scale gourd banjo.

latest goings ons

walnut mountain banjo started

gourd banjo #7 completed

more mountain banjo parts

went to see Daniel Jatta give a talk on the Akonting and the history of the banjo. then he played my gourd banjo.

Old English banjo restoration

Finally got the head on this old 6 stringer. made a flesh hoop out of a piece of stainless welding rod i found at work. I still need to fabricate some brass tension hooks and hook nuts. i also need to make  tailpiece and a rosewood nut.

 Im getting quite excited about hearing this one now

more restoration

I bought this 1930s parlor guitar from a charity shop for just £`12. its had a seriously hard life and probably needed chucking away. but i couldn't resist dabbling with it: The headstock was split (screwed together) the neck had severe saw tooth and someone had glued a slither of wood on the neck to repair it! It had been painted over with a nasty gloopy varnish. So far ive done a bit of gluing, a bit of filling a dn a lot of sanding / stripping. Its looking better already.

This is a 6 string English (made by Jordan of Liverpool circa 1880). The head had a floral painting witch Ive removed an kept somewhere safe. Ive polished the 12" brass (no wood!) pot and ive re-french polished the neck keeping all the patina and grime in place. Next is to replace the head, make a few tension hooks, replace the nut, make new tailpiece and bridge. Im really looking forward to hearing this old girl sing again.

I got this old fretless Lyon and Healey banjo on Ebay (circa late 1800 / early 1900). Its in a very poor shape but ive so far cleaned up and re ebonised the pot. re polished the neck and repaied the fingerboard (i think it was japanning. on sanding it released a white dust and smelled like poo). It needs the neck fitting correctly as the radius is very wrong, i need to make some more tension brackets and hooks then fit a new head. I will also be fabricating a brass tailpiece (unless i can find an original)

4 gourds

Ive recently had a batch of gourd banjo commissions.

Nicely figured sapelle neck with double ogees

 Nice and simple iroku neck

An interesting project to convert a Griffin banjos (unfinished) lefty neck to fit a gourd. I added flush fret position markers and a star inlay.

This one just started. A nicely flamed piece of meranti I found at my local wood yard. with big scroll peghead and double ogees. Its laminated with a maple stripe in the centre and a stained mahogany finger board and peghead overlay.