I am thinking of purchasing some hickory banjo tub blanks and creating a tub based on my style that will use a traditional 11' banjo head. This will retain the 9 1/2" active area by using a new style tone ring. I am debating this so that I can production-ize my hickory banjos. I was planning the tail section Steinberg tuners with no peg heads. Is anyone out there interested in my hickory banjos?

Lets take a moment to remember the King of Blue Grass Banjo, the great Earl Scruggs. He passed away of natural causes on Wednesday March 28th 2012 at the age of 88.

Just about all banjo players make an attempt at imitating his three finger picking style. He is most likely mentioned in every book about banjo's and he is most certainly mentioned in every book about blue grass.

Earl recorded  as recently  as 2009 on Steve Martins, Grammy winning, album The Crow. He can be heard, appropriately on the song Daddy Played the Banjo. He was approximately 85 years old at the time.

I have added a few links to some youTube videos of Earl on My links page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Scruggs

http://earlscruggs.com/biography.html