Banjo Alert

Timbuck

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As we near Christmas, Greater Manchester Police are once again operating their annual banjo amnesty.
For one day, people can drop off any of these shameful, dangerous instruments that they may posess, at their local police station, no questions asked.
They will then be incinerated, and the ashes fired into space, just to be sure.
* I urge you to take advantage of this scheme
New laws, coming in 2021 mean 5 years for posession of a tenor's worth, and a mandatory ' Five Strings And You're Out" policy. The sentence is deportation to The Inbreedia Islands, in the Pacific.
 
Bagpipes sound fine, when heard from a distance. The distance from here to Scotland is about right.

John Colter
 

A banjo player won $5,000,000.00 in the lottery. He was interviewed by the local TV station.

The interviewer said, "So now that you're a multi-millionaire, what do you suppose you'll do now?"

The banjo player said, "I figure I'll keep on giggin' till the money runs out."
 

A banjo player won $5,000,000.00 in the lottery. He was interviewed by the local TV station.

The interviewer said, "So now that you're a multi-millionaire, what do you suppose you'll do now?"

The banjo player said, "I figure I'll keep on giggin' till the money runs out."

Sounds about right. ;)

Like the old photographer's joke. How can you make money in photography? Sell all your equipment.
 
This lack of understanding, leading to persecution of a perfectly harmless traditional musical instrument, is hurtful to banjo lovers everywhere. Free the banjos! ;)

(We should at least make an exception for banjo ukuleles).

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This lack of understanding, leading to persecution of a perfectly harmless traditional musical instrument, is hurtful to banjo lovers everywhere. Free the banjos! ;)

(We should at least make an exception for banjo ukuleles).

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That IS a nice design. It does look homemade. Did you make your own neck? I like the headstock. Would you put up the plans or PM me? The hard part for me is getting the neck angle right. That looks like a 10" pot too. did you use one like:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002GFLRO/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_10?smid=A2RP4VCLOBWX64&psc=1

I've been chopping necks off cheap ukes and trying that. I just have a hand saw, chisels and a dremel.
 
That IS a nice design. It does look homemade. Did you make your own neck? I like the headstock. Would you put up the plans or PM me? The hard part for me is getting the neck angle right. That looks like a 10" pot too. did you use one like:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002GFLRO/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_10?smid=A2RP4VCLOBWX64&psc=1

I've been chopping necks off cheap ukes and trying that. I just have a hand saw, chisels and a dremel.

Yes, that's exactly the "10-inch pot" that I used! I'm going to be lazy here and link back to my old post on this instrument, which has more photos and detail: https://forum.ukuleleunderground.co...-completed-tenor-banjolele&highlight=Uke-alot

I did make my own neck. I'm not sure what guidance I can give you on the neck angle. It was designed to be roughly 3 degrees, if I recall correctly. But what I did was create a jig to help measure how far back the far end of the neck would be from a straight line, given the height of the bridge and the scale length of the instrument. Then I made a spacer of that thickness, which I put between the end of the neck and the fence of my radial arm saw when I cut the angle. That prevented me from having to try to set the saw to 87 or 93 degrees (and 3 degrees wasn't necessarily exactly the best angle anyway). In any case, the angle it was initially cut was almost right, but resulted in the action being a bit high. I modified the angle slightly with chisels, but it's actually shimmed right now to get to the correct action. One of these days, I will take it apart and modify it a bit more so that it is correct without a shim.

The neck is a mortise and tenon joint that is held on by a screw and a lag bolt, which is also the attachment for the threaded rod that spans the pot. Once the neck angle was cut, I used chisels to undercut the tenon cheeks to account for the radius of the pot. Only the outer edge of each cheek bears on the pot.

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I couldn't find any plans before I made this, so I made a drawing or two for myself that were loosely based on photos of other people's projects. I will post a drawing if I can find whatever I drew up.
 
The definition of Perfect Pitch

That’s when you throw the Accordion in the dumpster and it crushes the Banjo
 
I laugh at all the banjo jokes; "There are 100 different ways to tune a banjo - and all of them are wrong" etc. but I have a warm spot for the banjo. It is the instrument I play the best and where I learned a lot about the instrument building and pearl inlay crafts.

This is "The Little Cat"
 

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I laugh at all the banjo jokes; "There are 100 different ways to tune a banjo - and all of them are wrong" etc. but I have a warm spot for the banjo. It is the instrument I play the best and where I learned a lot about the instrument building and pearl inlay crafts.

This is "The Little Cat"

Wow, yours is way nicer than mine. Beautiful work!
 
Truly beautiful though to make your cats truly lifelike you need to put them off center and making their way off the fretboard because they have better things to do.
 
That IS a nice design. It does look homemade. Did you make your own neck? I like the headstock. Would you put up the plans or PM me? The hard part for me is getting the neck angle right. That looks like a 10" pot too. did you use one like:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002GFLRO/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_10?smid=A2RP4VCLOBWX64&psc=1

I've been chopping necks off cheap ukes and trying that. I just have a hand saw, chisels and a dremel.

You can buy a variety of necks, with and without fretboards, online - eBay and Amazon. If you want a challenge, buy a block of mahogany from Stew-Mac. You can cut two necks from one block.
 
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