First project completed - tenor banjolele

First off, thanks to everyone who posts their inspirational work here, and thanks also to everyone who takes the time to answer newbie questions from people like me!

Here is my tenor banjolele, which is completed except for some tinkering with the setup. It's built around a 10-inch Rhythm Band tunable hand drum and a pre-made fret board from Amazon. I built the maple neck and other wood parts. It has curly maple veneer on the front and back of the headstock, and the star inlay is cherry veneer. The neck has a carbon fiber bar from StewMac. It has Aquila Nylgut strings, except for the low G, which is a Savarez 0.0374" harp string.

I was fortunate to get the neck angle close to where it should be on the first shot. It currently has an action of about 3.0 mm at the 12th fret. I may play around with shimming the neck to a slightly greater angle to reduce that to 2.5 mm or so (once that's done, I can trim the cheeks to the new angle). But it plays fine as it is.

A few more pics....

Pretty decent for your first attempt. The tailpiece is way over built. A simple no knot tailpece for 20 bucks would have sufficed, and, would look more in keeping with the rest of the instrument. Having said that I applaud your efforts. Well done.

Very nice effort!

Good work! How fun. Did you enjoy the build?

It's nice! Congratulations! Do you like the way it sounds?

DPO said:

Pretty decent for your first attempt. The tailpiece is way over built. A simple no knot tailpece for 20 bucks would have sufficed, and, would look more in keeping with the rest of the instrument. Having said that I applaud your efforts. Well done.

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Thanks for your comments. I looked at the banjolele you currently have up for sale, and it's quite lovely and obviously built to a much higher standard than mine.

I agree that the tailpiece could certainly be built to look more graceful. I did have some reasons for building it that way. I acknowledge that given my level of experience, they may or may not all be good reasons (or there might be better solutions): (1) I like the aesthetics of a wood tailpiece, and don't really love some of the cheaper metal tailpieces on the market. (2) I had read various places that, even with nylon strings, string tension can be enough to break a wood tailpiece. But it's quite possible my tailpiece is stronger than it needs to be, and it would likely look better if it were thinner. (3) Many banjo tailpieces seem to be designed to rest on the metal rim, but my tension ring is below the level of the head, so the tailpiece would end up resting on the head. Therefore, I believe with this drum the tailpiece really needs to be held up above the head. It would be possible to add additional nuts to the mounting bolt of a metal tailpiece to accomplish that, but that might not look very good. And (4) there is a general recommendation to provide a string break angle of 12 to 15 degrees, and a no-knot tailpiece wouldn't allow for angle of 12 degrees or greater, given the other variables in play. Of courser, there are other, more expensive, metal tailpieces that would work. I don't know how critical string break angle is for a banjolele, but I decided I would try to keep it in that range for this build.

Cat M said:

Good work! How fun. Did you enjoy the build?

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Thanks! I did enjoy it. I'm considering making a couple ukuleles next. But I really should spend some more time actually learning to play. (I've been playing almost a year at this point, and have a long way to go).

captain-janeway said:

It's nice! Congratulations! Do you like the way it sounds?

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I think it sounds pretty good. I'll probably record and post a sound sample at some point, but want to get the action right first.

Uke-alot said:

Thanks! I did enjoy it. I'm considering making a couple ukuleles next. But I really should spend some more time actually learning to play. (I've been playing almost a year at this point, and have a long way to go).

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I'd love to try a build some day!

That's a nice looking instrument. If I may ask how did you do the headstock inlay? Making inlays is something I'd like to learn.
Bill

Uke-alot said:

Thanks for your comments. I looked at the banjolele you currently have up for sale, and it's quite lovely and obviously built to a much higher standard than mine.

I agree that the tailpiece could certainly be built to look more graceful. I did have some reasons for building it that way. I acknowledge that given my level of experience, they may or may not all be good reasons (or there might be better solutions): (1) I like the aesthetics of a wood tailpiece, and don't really love some of the cheaper metal tailpieces on the market. (2) I had read various places that, even with nylon strings, string tension can be enough to break a wood tailpiece. But it's quite possible my tailpiece is stronger than it needs to be, and it would likely look better if it were thinner. (3) Many banjo tailpieces seem to be designed to rest on the metal rim, but my tension ring is below the level of the head, so the tailpiece would end up resting on the head. Therefore, I believe with this drum the tailpiece really needs to be held up above the head. It would be possible to add additional nuts to the mounting bolt of a metal tailpiece to accomplish that, but that might not look very good. And (4) there is a general recommendation to provide a string break angle of 12 to 15 degrees, and a no-knot tailpiece wouldn't allow for angle of 12 degrees or greater, given the other variables in play. Of courser, there are other, more expensive, metal tailpieces that would work. I don't know how critical string break angle is for a banjolele, but I decided I would try to keep it in that range for this build.

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At the end of the day, the only thiing that matters is that you are happy with it.

Congrats, that's a very fine looking banjouke, interesting tailpiece....

cathouse willy said:

That's a nice looking instrument. If I may ask how did you do the headstock inlay? Making inlays is something I'd like to learn.
Bill

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Sorry I didn't respond. Had a busy couple of days.

This inlay was fairly straightforward. This procedure works for a veneer-on-veneer inlay, where you do the inlaying before anything is glued down:

1. Flatten field and inlay veneers as needed (mine did need to be flattened, especially the curly maple).
2. Cover inlay veneer with veneer tape. In my case, this was the star inlay. I was afraid that some of the points of the star would break off where the grain was perpendicular to the point. The veneer tape did in fact save my bum in this regard.
3. Draw pattern on veneer tape, which is on the inlay veneer.
4. Stick inlay veneer on top of field veneer with a small piece of double-sided tape. You just need enough tape to prevent the two veneers from shifting against one another.
5. Use a sharp utility knife or hobby (x-acto) knife to cut out the pattern. My cuts were all straight, so I used a ruler to guide them. Cut all the way through both veneers. As you cut, tilt the knife blade a few degrees toward the outside of the pattern. This puts a small bevel on the cut pieces that helps cover any gaps from imperfect cuts. You can make a few light cuts in each location, instead of one heavy cut to get all the way through, as long as you're careful to stay in the track of the initial cut.
6. Once the pattern is completely cut, separate the two pieces of veneer, which should be still held together by the two-sided tape. Dribble a little acetone between them to get the adhesive to release, if necessary.
7. You should be able to pop out the pattern from the lower (field) veneer and put the pattern from the top (inlay) veneer in its place. Hopefully they fit together with no gaps.
8. Put more veneer tape on the assembly to hold it together while you glue to the substrate piece. This should also prevent glue from squeezing up between the field and inlay veneers.
9. Glue the assembly to the substrate using a PVA glue, or whatever you prefer. It's probably a good idea to put a piece of wax paper between the veneer assembly and the clamping board just in case some glue seeps through the veneer.

Hope this helps. I took a zillion photos of this build, but somehow I didn't get any photos of cutting out the inlay. Sorry about that....