c.1915 Frankenstein Tenor Banjo

It's a gloomy Thursday outside and the perfect weather for a Frankenbanjo to roam the lands. I have absolutely no idea how original this instrument is, but certainly the neck and pot and most of the hardware date to the teens or early 1920s.

This banjo has been sitting in my workshop for a long time. Most of the frets were loose or missing so it needed a total refret and in addition the condition isn't the best -- it's been modified, the dowel has been spliced together from two pieces, there's a gap between the dowel and the end of the rim that I've filled with some nuts, and it needed a few replacement parts as well (tuners, endbolt, tailpiece, bridge, one replacement hook/nut/shoe set).

So, I put it off for a while, but finally this gloomy Thursday I resurrected it and connected it up to 20,000 volts... and... well... it's alive and all that.

New Grover friction pegs, original celluloid nut, vaguely "Stewart" style headstock shape but more crude.

These inlays were probably celluloid or clay and are deteriorating, but give a certain effect. Note the new frets.

The head is an older Remo type and I left it on because it fits so well with the rest of the banjo's personality.

This is an old bridge from my parts bin and looked perfect on it.

Here's the quirky part: this rim has no wood on it -- it's just a big hunk of brass -- so the rim itself is like a giant tonering. This gives it a lot of zing , stability and cut but not as much warmth as a wood rim.

Tuners work just fine.

Big old heel.

The oft-repaired dowel (previously) is too short so I used a longer end-bolt and popped these nuts to space it properly.

Here's the joined-together dowel.

That green screw serves as the "neck brace" to keep the neck tight to the pot. This was someone's previous modification and recalls 1880s banjos that used this method of reinforcement. It works just fine.

The all-brass rim is seriously cool. I had intended to use the pot to make a fretless 5-string banjo but never got around to it.

Here's a modern tailpiece (1920s style) from my parts bin.

Overall the banjo plays nice, has a cutting rumbly tone, and certainly has the home-field advantage when it comes to "one of a kind."

In the future...

Fun stuff coming up including two 1920s Vega banjo mandolins (a Little Wonder and a Style K), several pre-1900 5-string banjos including an 1870s minstrel-ish one, a 1940s 12-bass Hohner Regina piano accordion, a pair of old catalog flatback mandolins (one Regal, one Oscar Schmidt), another old '50s Harmony baritone uke, a pair of tenor banjos (one '20s, one '10s), that old late 1800s/early 1900s solid-wood cello I've been promising (if the geared tuners ever arrive!!) and sheesh there's some other stuff but I can't quite recall.

So, never fear the slow posting, for they'll all be coming 'round the mountain.

c.1930 (?) Viola da Terra

I posted this instrument a while back under the assumption it was an early 1900s instrument. Since then I've found this style and finish type in use in violas made both in the US and in the Azores from around the 1890s to the 1960s, so who really knows! A quick little explanation about these -- the "viola da terra" is related to the old guitar-like Spanish/Portuguese viola family, and is a folk instrument used and built on the Azores Islands as well as Madeira. Typically it's tuned similar to a 12-string guitar with steel but minus a low E course and is used to pump out chords for backing singers and other instruments.

Since the last posting of this instrument, the strings have been setup in a "tailpiece" fashion to alleviate stress on the top, friction tuners have been replaced with geared Kluson repros, the original string-mounting portion of the bridge has been replaced, and I've setup the stringing and string spacing to convert this into a small 12-string guitar in standard EADGBE (2-2-2-2-2-2) rather than an ADGBD (3-3-2-2-2) instrument in 5 courses. This makes it more practical for the American guitarist, though of course it can be converted back by replacing the nut and reslotting the bone bridge.

The scale is 21 5/8" which means even at pitch with the light 12-string set on it, the feel is slinky and fast and easy on the fingers, even with the bigger v-shaped neck on it. The advantage of lightening the build and using a shorter scale and lighter gauge strings is obvious -- and also something typical of Portuguese-influenced instruments like Portuguese guitars and related string families. They still have plenty of volume but aren't encumbered by having to be built so rigidly and so have a mellower, sweeter tone.

The heart soundholes are awfully pretty and the construction is extremely light. Almost all the weight is in the new tuners I put on it.

After playing this for a while, the remains of the original clay dot markers wore out so I replaced them with abalone that looks quite fetching with the rest of the instrument.

Note all that pickwear! The top is crack free. Also, check out the pretty purfling around the top edge and the inlaid "rosettes" -- also the top is bound in what appears to be either maple or pearwood or something similar.

I had to slightly cut down each of the single-unit Klusons to fit correctly, but they're a vast, vast improvement over 1:1 friction pegs and hold tuning quite well.

The heel is a Spanish-style one where the neck and neck block are the same piece. This has a very fine hairline crack on its exterior where someone (foolishly) put a strap hanger. I've backfilled it and it's stable and does not go into the inner part of the neck/neckblock.

Note that there are a couple of medium-length repaired hairline cracks on the back. The back may be some sort of cypress? or other similar wood, stained a medium-dark "fiddle" red.

I reused these brass screws which were the string mounts from the original "pin" style bridge that disintegrated roughly a week after first stringing (I must say, the original bridge design for these is really not the most successful effort).

The result of a tailpiece-loaded string tension is that this instrument has warmed up, increased in volume, and stabilized as far as tuning and top deformation goes. This stays in tune better than most modern instruments hanging around the workshop and is certainly more stable than most 12-strings (save older Martins) that I've encountered.

c.2004 Fender MIM Telecaster (Modded)

I realized that I've never actually shown off my "go to" electric guitar. Maybe because I'm such an acoust-o-phile? I bought this Tele new in late 2004, as I recall, and used it for band and recording work ever since, tinkering with it now and then.

A couple years ago I replaced the stock pickups and pickguard with some of the noiseless ones and then last year I added the Bigsby whammy bar and modified bridge, including a non-rickety Mustang-style adjustable saddle. Later on I swapped the bridge pickup for a GFS Danelectro-style lipstick single coil unit and the neck pickup with a GFS mini retrotron unit.

Between the two I get a mixed Gretsch and surf-y/Tele vibe which, once one plays around with tone and volume, a pretty big spectrum of 50s and 60s sounds.

Like '70s Teles, I added a 2nd string tree to get better downpressure on the D&G strings.

The frets are still in great shape despite a lot of play. I'm generally pretty easy on frets.

Chrome, chrome, chrome!

The Tele tophat on the pickup selector is long since lost at some show or another and now it sports a strat knob.

Note the happy elbow-wear on the octopus sticker.

This is the "midnight wine" finish.

At some point I installed some slightly more rounded strap buttons so they wouldn't stick into me so much while moving about with the guitar.

I'm actually surprised this thing is in such good shape, as far as the finish goes, considering the play it's gotten. I guess a fella can toss that off to the fact that these have auto-style finishes on them.

c.1910 German-made Schweitzer 1/2 Size Violin

Here's an early 1900s Schweitzer copy violin, made in Germany. This one is a 1/2 size instrument, so it's good for the youngins or in case you want to try a soprano violin (CGDA above regular GDAE -- an octave above viola).

My work was merely cleaning and setup as well as a set of new perlon-cored strings. It has an old, not the prettiest, but stable repair to a top crack at the bass side of the tailpiece. This is certainly a very nice smaller instrument with a one-piece flamed maple back, nicely carved top, ebony board and nut, and a good, warm, clear tone with decent volume -- which is actually asking quite a bit of a smaller-size instrument.

...it's also pretty!

The pegs are well-fitted and hold nicely.

The original bridge (also well-fitted) was bouncing around inside the instrument so I pulled it out and popped it on. Action height is set nice and low and this could make a good small fiddle as well since it's so quick to finger.

Here's that pretty one-piece back.

The neck has some decent flame in it, too, but not extravagant.

It still has its gut tailgut.

Here's that old repair -- a little messy-looking with the sun shining on it, but workmanly and stable.

Copy label.

...oh, and check out that classy hard case? This one was traveling in style. The bow comes with it but will need rehairing.