Banjo Man

[Timberwolf]

You may find this interesting...I did..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgpSzWLY49k

[C. in Indy]

You may find this interesting...I did..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgpSzWLY49k

I read a book about banjos 2-3 years ago, and I even built an ultra-cheap kit based on a goatskin top.   Try as I might,  I was just too accustomed to 6 string guitar to get it playing worth anything!

One interesting thing in the book was that there was a golden-era when a lot of banjos were 6-string (6 equally long strings) instead of 5-string... facilitating 1920s/1930s sounds similar to the "sliding chord" one hears in "Sweet City Woman" and that type of song.   Many of these original 6-strings subsequently got changed to 5-strings (where the 5th string is a shorter one at a higher pitch).

[AHill]

One thing I never thought about when I started woodworking was how important jigs are to ensure accuracy and repeatability. They also solve problems you can't solve with basic tools. When you visit workshops of master woodworkers, you often see a host of jigs and templates hanging up and stacked in corners. I thought the jig he used for the rim glue-up was genius.

[Timberwolf]

One thing I never thought about when I started woodworking was how important jigs are to ensure accuracy and repeatability.  They also solve problems you can't solve with basic tools.  When you visit workshops of master woodworkers, you often see a host of jigs and templates hanging up and stacked in corners.  I thought the jig he used for the rim glue-up was genius.

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I thought the jig he used for the rim glue-up was genius.

It was very "unique" to say the least...and very effective as well, Allan...one of the things that caught my attention very quickly..I had to look it over several times.

[Bill_Houghton]

You can still get six-string banjos; people generally tune them like a guitar.

Or you can get a tenor banjo and tune it like the top four strings of a guitar or like an octave mandolin (like mando, but an octave down).

[adamcherubini]

My grandfather invented the resonator banjo. Before my grandfather banjos all had drum heads on both sides. He was an Italian immigrant from extreme north east Italy, a violin and mandolin player and a woodworker. He encountered the banjo when he came to America I think around ww1. He made a wooden back that was curved like a mandolin to throw the sound better. He sold his design to the Gibson guitar company sometime in the early 20s for $50 (which sounds like nothing, but was really a lot of money).

Could be that other people had the same idea, I don’t know. I’ve never seen my grandfather credited with this invention in any way. I thought you’d like the story. He put a couple things together that he knew about and loved. We should all be like that.

[Timberwolf]

My grandfather invented the resonator banjo. Before my grandfather banjos all had drum heads on both sides. He was an Italian immigrant from extreme north east Italy, a violin and mandolin player and a woodworker. He encountered the banjo when he came to America I think around ww1. He made a wooden back that was curved like a mandolin to throw the sound better. He sold his design to the Gibson guitar company sometime in the early 20s for $50 (which sounds like nothing, but was really a lot of money).

Could be that other people had the same idea, I don’t know. I’ve never seen my grandfather credited with this invention in any way. I thought you’d like the story. He put a couple things together that he knew about and loved. We should all be like that.

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He put a couple things together that he knew about and loved. We should all be like that.

I agree...I had a really good friend that, in his later years, documented his life from his earliest recollection to the present day, including his experiences in combat in the Pacific during WWII...where he was severely wounded on two occasions, once on Guadalcanal and another time in the battle for Okinawa, where he received the Bronze Star with combat "V". It was a small booklet of about 25 pages, but it contained things I never knew about him, and were were buds for over fifty years.