Has anyone made their own Banjolele?

Dane

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I found a few instructables on making them from tambourines and small drums and such, which made me think about making something like that with my old OU3 which I don't like and refuse to play.

I was just wondering if anyone had done it, and how did yours turn out? It doesn't have to be a banjo-per-say, maybe you made it with a tin box, or and old cookie tin I dunno. Just curios.
 
I made one,using the neck from a Mahalo soprano that I trashed,and a ten inch
diameter hand drum.It works well,and was quite easy to make.Took around four
hours to make,but that included breaks for coffee!
If you go to:
http://www.ukulelecosmos.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=12952
you will find my posts on Ukulele Cosmos,where I described what I did
and photos and a rough plan of the build.
 
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I made one,using the neck from a Mahalo soprano that I trashed,and a ten inch
diameter hand drum.It works well,and was quite easy to make.Took around four
hours to make,but that included breaks for coffee!

Very cool! You don't have a tutorial anywhere by chance do you? Or a video of you playinng it? I'd love to hear!
 
Hadn't "made" one, but I have a 1930's Harmony Banjo Uke I completely torn down and restored. It was actually fun, and not hard to do at all. I reshaped the nut slot, and hand shaped a nut for it too. There was allot of hand work with restoring it, and to be honest, I don't think it would be so hard to build one. They are very straight forward and very "modular" with the parts. Very easy to remove the neck, adjust the nect and all that.. Banjos are unique like that, that you can remove all the parts and put them back together easily..
 
One of the guys in our local uke group made one very much along the lines of luthien's. It's great. Very funky. Not quite as brash as your average banjolele. I think he's on UU, so maybe he'll catch this. I'll try to drop him a line.
 
I don't have a tutorial no,I saw the basic idea on the net someplace and just
improvised from that! I used a piece of threaded bar that continues from the
heel,through the 'drum' and down to the bottom,for strength and rigidity,with
nuts at either end;and I placed a two inch block that I made (same profile as
the neck/heel) between the heel and the drum, to make the scale length come
more or less in the centre of the drum.Made a hardwood bridge,and a hardwood
tailpiece to anchor the strings.The tailpiece is fixed in place with a cord,like a
violin tailpiece if you have seen one?
If you actually join Ukulele Cosmos and become a member,(its free and the same
process as the Ukulele Underground membership!)then you can see my photographs
and sketches that covered the building process and I posted a sound clip of the
finished article too.I don't have a webcam,so anything I do can only have a sound
clip at best! Still play it daily,if only for a few minutes,as a change from my other
ukuleles!
 
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I don't have a tutorial no,I saw the basic idea on the net someplace and just
improvised from that! I used a piece of threaded bar that continues from the
heel,through the 'drum' and down to the bottom,for strength and rigidity,with
nuts at either end;and I placed a two inch block that I made (same profile as
the neck/heel) between the heel and the drum, to make the scale length come
more or less in the centre of the drum.Made a hardwood bridge,and a hardwood
tailpiece to anchor the strings.The tailpiece is fixed in place with a cord,like a
violin tailpiece if you have seen one?
If you actually join Ukulele Cosmos and become a member,(its free and the same
process as the Ukulele Underground membership!)then you can see my photographs
and sketches that covered the building process and I posted a sound clip of the
finished article too.I don't have a webcam,so anything I do can only have a sound
clip at best! Still play it daily,if only for a few minutes,as a change from my other
ukuleles!

I was part of ukulelecosmos before, then I came back one day and I think she had made a new forum or something, so I had to make a new profile, but it never got approved haha
 
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