A "quickie" banjolele project for my daughter

For my daughter's 17th birthday I made a pretty easy fairly low budget banjolele.

My part was mostly a matter of sourcing some parts, and assembling them. I just bought components from Ebay....concert size mahogany ukulele neck and rosewood fretboard, a 10" Suzuki hand drum, then appropriate hardware. The decals and electro-luminescent tape were optional! (the banjo head lights up on this one)

The main assembly includes just bolting the neck to the hand drum body. I sanded a slight curve on the inside of the neck where it mates to the body, and drilled some holes for two hangar bolts. I also made a small cut out in the neck for the tensioning ring around the drum head. Some paint and stain, and voila...a banjolele!

Those of you with a good eye will note that the tuning pegs aren't exactly in the correct orientation. The original set of 2L+2R pegs didn't fit the hole spacing on the neck. I had the tuners you see sitting around from an old Strat style neck.



It glows!

Nice work. Creative. I'm sure your daughter's going to love it! How's the sound?

The sound is pretty cool....it's got a distinct banjo "plunk". Still working on getting the intonation right, but it's coming.

Looks great! Like the armrest
How is the intonation now?

I've seen many banjolele projects where they have to fit an extra piece of wood between drum and neck to get the scale right. You didn't need it because of the 10" drum?
And how does the head holding up?

I'm asking these questions because I'm thinking of doing a 'quicky' myself I'm still wondering if it is worth the effort.