banjo building on hold until 2013

10/01/2012

1 Comment

 
Sorry I haven’t been actively blogging lately. I have been stalled on my banjo making.

I am building my wood shop. To justify my woodshop I am constructing my own kitchen cabinets. This is also pretty interesting since I have not built cabinets before.

Our kitchen cabinets, although in decent shape, are dated in a popular style from the mid 70’s. Kim wanted a light color kitchen. It just seems better for working in. Also a kitchen often is the hub in a house that everyone hangs out in for some time every day. Being lighter in color is more inviting.

I love distinct woods with particular recognizable grains (another why for hickory banjos). So investigating what would look nice stained natural, I came across sycamore.  It’s a very tough wood with an interlocking grain pattern. When quarter sawn, the grain can take on a very lacy look like Australian lace wood.

Not being a rich man the cost of the wood was important too. With Cherry at ~$8 a board foot maple a ~$6 what could I get sycamore for? Well it turns out it all depends on who I buy it from. It went from $6.50 board to $1.25 a board foot for 4/4 quarter sawn.  So, I budgeted $4

When checking out the $1.25 a board foot lumber, expecting a twisted cracking mess, I found out it was kiln dried select or better 12 to 14 foot boards all wider than 6 inches. About half of it has nice figuring, straight and almost no checking.

The catch was they wanted to sell all that they had as a lot. I needed 280-300 board feet. This lot was 391 board feet. So, $488 for the lot when I had budgeted $1,160 plus the opportunity to make more mistakes and not run out of wood. I’m in.

Unless I get request for pictures along the way, this will be my last blog for awhile until my cabinets are done and I’m back to banjo’s. I expect to be January completing the kitchen.  (Sycamore could make an interesting banjo.)

1 Comment
 

Electric Hollow Body Banjo

07/17/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
As I have blogged before, even knowing better, I went about running my grain directing for the axe banjo the wrong way.

 It has cracks, it still sounds ok but it’s time to replace it. Rather than just do the same thing again I’m planning a hollow body electric tub. One of the pickups I am making the other is a guitar lipstick pickup.

Often on banjos the pickup is peizo. The peizo pickup is expected to pick up the instruments vibrations that produce the sound rather than through the air like a microphone. These are ceramic discs mounted to a conductor and they are active pickups, meaning that they need power usually in the form of a 9 volt battery.

I plan to make a passive pickup that will pick up the instruments vibrations through a suspended coil and magnet mechanically coupled to the tone ring. It will require no power and the initial tests indicate that it will provide a clean natural acoustic sound.

The reason that I am adding the lipstick pickup is for an unnatural banjo sound more like and electric guitar. I also have a passive overdrive to get a gritty sound if desired. (For fun)

The picture is a 3D representation of the tub that I plan to start making Soon.
Add Comment
 

Rythm Bones

06/27/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
Here is an instrument tht can be made from scrap stock. "Rythm Bones" shown are a few that I have carved from hickory and flamed maple.

The set on the right shows the blanks that I start with. I make then on my 2 axis CNC to insure the correct curve.

Different woods make different sounds. Even carving them different will produce differnt sounds. I have enough scrap for about 12 pair.

I left three pair with my friend who owns Blue Fish Guitars for him to check out. If he likes them he may sell some for me. These could be my fist professional sales for instruments.

Bones are traditionally Ox or sheep rib bones. Most Rythm Bones players have natural bone and wooden bones for differnt sounds.

I left wood on my curve so that I could put a sort of handle on them to make them easier for a novice like me to play.

I have designed them in Pro E Wildfire so that if I get access to a 3 axis CNC I can produce Rythem Bones with an exact shape. They are about 3/8" thick 1 1/4" wide and 7" long with a 24" curve to them. Below is my Pro e design and a pic of how to hold them.

My next blog will be about the area Luthier meeting that I attended. Some of the hosers (canadian for guys) were from Canada "A". I didn't take any pictures but at least one of the guys has a web site where he sells his craft. Casper Guitars. I wll put his link on my links page. http://www.casperguitar.com/ . They are really cool and sound great. Blue Fish Guitars has one in their shop for sale. http://bluefishguitars.com/.
Add Comment
 

Heritage Guitar

06/14/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
Paul Murphy, from Blue Fish Guitars in Plymouth Michigan  and I took the very cool Heritage Guitar factory tour. Its the old Gibson Plant in Kalamazoo Michigan. Several of Gibson’s luthiers who didn’t want to make the move to Nashville, when Gibson closed the Kalamazoo plant, started Heritage Guitars and kept the plant open. They have been in business for twenty five years as Heritage.

They haven’t updated anything. Its a blast from the past. The luthiers are making hollow and semi-hollow body electric guitars using the same techniques that made Gibson famous all those years ago.

There isn’t a computer (not counting employee cell phones) in the entire facility. Place an order and its processed by hand and you will get well crafted a hand made guitar from one of their artisan luthiers.

http://www.heritageguitar.com/indexa.html
http://www.bluefishguitars.com/
Picture
No plastic feel of the new water-base finishes, all of their guitars finished with hand buffed cellulose lacquer.

No laminates for the arch tops. No CNC routers. All are carved from solid using an over under pin router rotary duplicator. I’m not sure if the tool has an official name but that describes this, purpose built, machine well.

Picture
The sides are bent like they have been for one hundred years, on a gas fired iron, shaped for the job.

http://www.heritageguitar.com/indexa.html
http://www.bluefishguitars.com/
Picture
Our tour guide was Ren Wall. This is the same Ren Wall who worked in engineering for Gibson. He is the engineer behind the Heritage HRW pickups that so many artist covet today. Ren had plenty of stories about playing licks with BB King. Designing guitars with Les Paul. He even told us of once designing a guitar for Ted Nugent based Teds hand print.

My next luthier adventure will be a local luthiers meeting, in a few weeks, Paul invited me to it. I have seen some of the acoustic guitars that have come from this group and the workmanship is nothing less than perfect. I am pretty stoked to learn a few tricks of the trade. I’m hoping that I have something to offer this group with my years of tool making and manufacturing experience.

If these guys have anything for sale I’ll see if they will let me show off their skills with a few pictures here. I know that Paul has at least one of these hand crafted beauties in his store.

Add Comment
 

Heritage Guitar

06/04/2012

0 Comments

 
I am planning a tour of the Harmony Guitar factory in Kalamazoo MI next Wednesday 06-13-2012. My friend and luthier Paul Murphy from Blue Fish Guitars ( http://www.bluefishguitars.com/index.html ) in Plymouth MI is planning on going with me. The Harmony factory is in the historic Gibson factory. This is the factory where Gibson also made its banjo's and madolins. I am so looking forward to the tour and I am hoping to get to talk with some of the luthiers. I will post some pictures next week.
Bill Battle
bill.battle@hickorybanjo.com
Add Comment
 

Bela Fleck

06/04/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
Its been awhile since my last blog. I've been to see the Flecktones. Awsome... I talked with the Flecktone mangement before going to see if I could get a banjo head signed by Bela. They said just to hang around and Bela would come to the edge of the stage and talk with anyone who hung around after the show. I was a little too toung tied to hold a conversation but Bela was great and signed one of my 10 2/16" banjo heads for me. So here is the display that I made for it with a picture of Bela and the ticket stub to date his signature. Pretty cool.

The whole band is amazing. Bela Fleck / on banjo, Howard Levy / on hamonica and key boards, Victor Wooten /on Bass and Victor's brother Futureman on the drumitar and drums.
I knew about Bela and Victor who suprised me most was Howard. There was one time he make his hamonica sound just like bag pipes. How he did it I have no idea.

Bela did a very nice tribute to Earl Scruggs.

 will try to get back into a weekly habit of blogging.
Bill Battle
bill.battle@hickorybanjo.com
This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
Add Comment
 

Post Title.

04/10/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
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?

Add Comment
 

Post Title.

04/02/2012

0 Comments

 
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
Add Comment
 

Post Title.

03/12/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
Today I want to show a good picture and talk about my inlays for the hammer banjo.

 It’s a long neck so I wanted markers for when played as along neck and when a capo is applied. What seems to be extra round dot inlays, are to help with where inlay markers would be for when a capo is applied to the third fret.  The hammer inlays are for where the inlay markers should be on a long neck and also where the two sets of markers would overlap.

Picture
For the markers on the side of the neck, I added additional 12th fret double markers. One set of double markers for the 12th fret normally and another for when there is a capo on the third fret.

I did this for me, believing that I will mainly play this banjo with a capo.

The markers commercially available for the sides of the neck, from Stewart MacDonald, were either black or white markers. I didn’t want black markers on my white edging so I made my own. (They also had mother of pearl and such but I didn’t want that either.)

My markers are hickory. I turned down some hickory to 3/32” in diameter, drilled matching holes, bonded the “hickory toothpicks” into the holes and trimmed them flush. I used a new Exacto blade to get a clean flush trim.

To me the natural wood side markers have absolutely the best look for my banjos.

Add Comment
 

My bridges are made of two different materials but are of very similar design.

02/29/2012

0 Comments

 
The bridge on the hammer banjo is actually made from a deer antler. Here is the antler info for the tree hugger in all of us. The deer was not harvested for its rack, it was road kill. Although unfortunate for the deer and the vehicle it encountered it gave us a nice piece of unique material to work with.
Picture
The antler makes a good bridge because it is important for the bridge to be light weight yet rigid. The strength of the material lets the bridge be carved to quite a thin piece making it light. The lighter the bridge the less it dampens the string vibrations. Thus more of the vibrations are transferred to the banjo head.  It’s also just a neat conversation piece. I also made the fifth string guide from the antler.
Picture
I like to have five legs on my bridge to transfer the energy directly beneath each string.  Traditionally banjo bridges have three legs and I’m sure there is some science behind it. I just can’t get over the idea that somehow the five legs, one for each string, should even out the strings making each sound more distinctive. I do believe that I can hear the difference. I can’t explain what is different but I can say my preference is the five legged bridge.

The bridge on the axe banjo is made from black walnut. Again here is the black walnut info for the tree hugger in all of us. The black walnut was not harvested from a living tree. The walnut tree had fallen on my property, possibly in a storm, and I had harvested the fallen tree for firewood. I scavenged one of the sticks of wood to make the bridge from.
Picture
The walnut also transfers the energy well and is a more traditional banjo bridge material. Having a more abundant source of material, the fear of scraping the part was less so I daringly made the walnut bridge thinner than the antler bridge. Thinner means lighter means more volume from the strings.

Also I spaced the strings at 0.5”.  Traditionally the strings are at about 0.375” to 0.425”. This is done just for me. I have fatter fingers and for me, this small spacing difference makes the banjo easier to play. I understand that Gold Tone also has models with wider string spacing for people like me.
Add Comment
 
<< Previous