SweetWaterBlue
Well-known member
My friend JoeUke from the SEUkers picked this little guy up for me from an antique flea market store last week. Joe restored the one for UkeRepublic that I posted a video of on YT (also in the SEUkers channel). Mine was pretty much a wall hanger when I got it. It had the old wooden peg tuners, and one was broken. Another one disintegrated to dust when I tried to tune it with real strings. It had no bridge, and two strings that looked like real string, but they may have been gut died red.
I got a bag of eBay surplus friction tuners from Mainland (thanks for the super fast shipping, Mike), and put some of them on it. I know that is not historically correct, but I want to play it - not hang it in a museum. The rest of the bag will most likely go on cigar box ukes. I fashioned a very crude bridge from a square piece of wood, and strung it up with a set of old HiLo strings from my Flea.
It had no label, but the headstock looks a lot like a Weymann, and the tuners etc, probably date it somewhere in the 1920s-1930s. The case is quite interesting. It has the door at the bottom, but that part was missing. I haven't had time to clean it up yet, but here are some pictures and a sound clip:
http://www.box.net/shared/ukkj8sj07o
I think it will sound a lot better when I order a real banjo bridge, but I couldn't wait that long to test it. Banjo players say the bridge is the most critical piece for getting good sound out of one, so my simple garage hack is undoubtedly holding it back. Of course, who knows how many decades its been since this little guy made music. I may make a resonator too.
I got a bag of eBay surplus friction tuners from Mainland (thanks for the super fast shipping, Mike), and put some of them on it. I know that is not historically correct, but I want to play it - not hang it in a museum. The rest of the bag will most likely go on cigar box ukes. I fashioned a very crude bridge from a square piece of wood, and strung it up with a set of old HiLo strings from my Flea.
It had no label, but the headstock looks a lot like a Weymann, and the tuners etc, probably date it somewhere in the 1920s-1930s. The case is quite interesting. It has the door at the bottom, but that part was missing. I haven't had time to clean it up yet, but here are some pictures and a sound clip:
http://www.box.net/shared/ukkj8sj07o
I think it will sound a lot better when I order a real banjo bridge, but I couldn't wait that long to test it. Banjo players say the bridge is the most critical piece for getting good sound out of one, so my simple garage hack is undoubtedly holding it back. Of course, who knows how many decades its been since this little guy made music. I may make a resonator too.
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