Boy Meets Banjo

A fun thing that I have been doing lately is playing banjo in local grade schools.  I really like playing for classrooms because the benefits and smiles that it brings to everyone involved - the kids, their teacher, and me.

Playing for the first grade class.

For example, kids are most open to learning if they are engaged and entertained.  For our overworked teachers, to fill several hours a day, every day, with engaging and entertaining curriculum that not only imparts important life skills and values but also teaches standardized curriculum is a daunting task.  When I come in and play for a class it offers the teacher a bit of help and respite, for which they have expressed a lot of gratitude.

Also, when I see the looks on the kids’ faces, I know they are getting a lot out of it.  They are excited and entertained and it opens their horizons to forms of music and instruments that they otherwise might never encounter.  Best of all it gets their imagination going.  Standardized tests are fine, but the most powerful thing we can foster in our kids is a free and productive imagination.

And, perhaps most of all, it helps me.  If I want to reignite my passion for something, I teach it to kids.  Their enthusiasm is positively infectious.

The session I am writing about was with a first grade class that was full of pleasant surprises. The teacher warned me that her class was challenging to manage and keep focused.  She advised me that I would be doing well to hold them for fifteen minutes. You could feel the giddy excitement in the room build while the kids were taking their seats around me on the carpet.  Much to my surprise, they immediately launched into questions about everything.  Their questions were remarkably astute, more so than any group of adults I have played for.  As a group, they deconstructed virtually every important aspect of the design and construction of the banjo and how it all affects the sound.  I loved that part because as a designer and builder of banjos, it is good to re-frame things in simple terms.  It helps make clarify what sometimes can feel like a mass of complex details.

The kids and their teacher also loved the music.  I sometimes think of old-time music, especially banjo and fiddle, as fairly esoteric and unknown these days.  I forget that this form of music evolved to entertain and speak to families and communities, including kids.  They were instantly and spontaneously clapping their hands and singing along. Though in the beginning it seemed like it would be difficult to keep their attention for more than 15 minutes, we stopped after 45 minutes and the kids still wanted more.

I also worked with their teacher to create some lesson ideas that she could spin off of the experience after I left the classroom.  Their favorite song was, “Mole in the Ground.”  It has a fairly repetitive lyric structure and easy rhyming scheme so I suggested that perhaps she could have the kids make up their own lyrics and draw pictures to illustrate them.  A couple of days later she presented me with a book of their lyrics, which were quite creative and cute.  I have included a couple of pictures from the book below.  These two read, “If I was a fish in a bowl, I would swim through a hole” and, “If I was a butterfly in a tree, I would hope the birds don’t see me.”  They brought a smile to my heart and creating them was a lot of fun for the kids.

The fish lyric and picture.

The butterfly lyric and picture.

So, I encourage you all to get out there and bring your music to your community.  For just an hour out of your day you can make the world a better place to live.

Playing banjo in the classroom.

Yesterday, at the request of a local preschool I played banjo for the kids.  It was probably the most fun I have had playing in a long time.  The kids were very excited and attentive. Read the rest of this entry »

The time has come to put my banjo together.  I installed the brackets, making sure that they are all lined up straight with the rim.

Install the brackets.

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While the neck was being finished, I was also working on the pot.  The rim cap was applied in a simple way.  We just used a single piece of figured cherry that was about 13″ square and 1/2″ thick and glued it to the bottom of the pot.  Once that dried, I cut away the excess material on the outside of the rim using a band saw and on the inside using a jigsaw.  The rough edges were cut square with the pot using a router with a flush cut bit.  We rounded the corners of the rim cap using a router equipped with a quarter rounding bit and an extra wide pilot bearing so that it rounded just the very corner, leaving most of the rim cap flat.

Pot with the heel cap material glued on at right side of picture.

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The next step was to create the all-important connection between the neck and the pot.  On a banjo, that connection is critical because it helps set the angle of the neck to the pot, which affects the playability of the instrument and also determines how efficiently and effectively the neck and pot work together to transfer sound.  On my banjo, I used an older style of connection, that of a wooden dowel stick.  The dowel stick is a slender piece of hardwood that is inserted into the neck, extends through the center of the pot, and is connected to the inside of the pot by the screw that holds on the tailpiece.  The dowel stick is about 0.75″ thick on one end and tapers to about 0.5″ on the other end.  About an inch of the thick part of the stick is turned round to allow it to be attached to the neck in a very precise mortise and tenon joint.  The photo below shows the dowel stick being drying after finish has been applied to it.  Note that the square end that is held in the jaws of the clamp will be cut off to allow the dowel stick to be glued into a round mortise hole that was previously drilled into the heel of the neck.

The dowel stick.

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I was surprised to learn that even though a banjo neck has to be essentially perfect in order for it to feel right, hand-built necks are carved freehand in much the way a sculptor might work.  There are no jigs or guides used.  First, I drew the profile of the neck and heel onto the side of the neck blank.  At Will Fielding’s suggestion, I drew the thickness of the neck to be 0.875″ to the bottom of the fretboard at the nut and 1.125″ at the 12th fret.  The shape of the heel is purely based on aesthetics and perhaps comfort.  I drew the heel in with a dramatic up-sweep to sharp lines at the edge of the heelcap.  The back and side profiles were then cut out on a band saw.

The back shape of the neck cut away.

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In this post I describe the next steps in building the neck of my banjo.  Please note that some of the steps described in this series of posts will be shown a bit out of order.  I am showing the neck building process all the way through so that it is easier to follow, but while the neck was being built, the pot was also being completed.  That way, I continued to make progress while glues were drying, etc.

I drew the outline of the final shape of the fingerboard.  I neglected to write in my earlier posts that the very first step in building my banjo was to draw a full-size template or schematic of the finished instrument showing the nut, edge of the pot, lines where all the strings would travel, and the shape of the fingerboard and neck.  I cut the drawing out and used it as a template to carefully draw the final neck profile onto the fingerboard, including the arc of the heel where the neck joins to the pot, the taper of the sides of the neck from that point to the nut, and the cutout for the fifth string.

Drawing the neck profile.

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Next, I drew the peghead profile on the peghead overlay.  First, the profile was drawn on card stock, cut out, and then cut into left and right halves (only one half of the template will be used).  That half-profile was lined up with the centerline of the neck, one side of the profile was drawn, then it was flipped and the other side was drawn. Doing it in halves that way assured that the finished profile was symmetrical with respect to the centerline.  Then the centers of the pegholes were marked and punched with an awl.  Then we tilted the stage of a drill press to bring the drill bit perpendicular to the peghead face and drilled the pegholes.

Drilling the pegholes.

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The neck starts out as a 58″ piece of 4″ wide 8/4 lumber that is cut in half and the two halves glued together to make the rough 4″x4″ neck blank. The two halves are joined such that they are “bookended,” meaning that the cut ends that were in the middle of the 58″ board are placed together in a mirror image so that any tendency one of the halves might have to warp in a particular direction will be balanced by the other half tending to warp in the opposite direction. The two halves are carefully squared and flattened using a joiner so that when they are placed together for gluing they fit absolutely perfectly with no air space. In order to make the joint between the two more aesthetically pleasing, a thin veneer of darker wood is glued in between, creating a thin, decorative line in the finished neck. After the glue is dry, the neck blank is squared again. In this style of neck building, the peghead, neck, and heel are all carved out of this approximately 4″ x 4″ x 29″ block.

Next, the angle of the face of the peghead is cut using a table saw and a groove is routed into the middle of the neck where the truss rod will be placed.  The truss rod is a device that allows the neck to be flexed slightly to adjust for any bow that might occur over time.  In most production instruments these days, the peghead has an opening where one can use an allen wrench to adjust the truss rod.  I feel that the plate that covers that opening takes up a lot of peghead space and I’ve never seen one I really like the look of, so I installed my truss rod with the opening through the heel of the neck instead.

Neck blank, truss rod, and rim with rim cap material.

Next the peghead overlay is glued onto the peghead surface.  In order to make a flat surface for clamping, the wedge shape cut from the blank to make the peghead face is adhered to the back of the peghead using double-sticky tape.  The peghead covering of 1/8″ thick cherry burl wood was glued in place and clamped tightly with a block and parallel jaw clamps.

Peghead ready to be clamped.

Peghead clamped and drying.

Next: Cutting the peghead and cutting and gluing on the fretboard.

Now to begin the work of creating my banjo.  One of the first aesthetic decisions I had to make was the woods I would use.  For the neck and pot, Will offered a choice of cherry or maple.  I have recently read articles questioning the necessity and environmental responsibility (and in some cases the legality) of using imported tone wood so I wanted to build my banjo from domestic hardwoods.  One thing that attracted me to learning banjo building from Will Fielding is that he supports the use of domestic hardwoods and at least one of his models is built entirely from woods relatively local to his shop in Vermont.  I also wanted a unique instrument with a resonant, woody sound.  I chose cherry wood for both the neck and pot of my banjo.  In the hope of increasing the depth and resonance of the instrument, I chose to use a 12″ pot.  Some things I have read recently question how much a particular wood contributes to the sound of an instrument.  Regardless, I am glad I chose cherry over maple for my first project because it turns out that it is much easier to carve than maple.  I am also really happy with the sound of my finished banjo, so I feel lucky and grateful that I instinctively made the choices that I did.  Given the choice, I would rather be lucky than skillful and with practice I hope to be both.

Will had many choices of beautiful domestic and imported woods for the fretboard, peghead cap, heel cap, and rim cap.  I chose a cherry burlwood for the peghead cap, and a darker, and more highly figured cherry for the heel cap and rim cap, which creates a subtle contrast with the cherry wood used for the main body of the pot.

For the fretboard, I took a liking to a very special wood.  It is Hophornbeam, also known locally as Vermont Ironwood.  I was surprised to learn that “Ironwood” does not refer to any particular species but is a name that has been used colloquially for any wood that is noted for its hardness.  I really like woodgrain and the Ironwood that Will offered is medium-dark tan with a deep, rich grain.  I like the look of it better than the more traditional black ebony and it feels really nice to the touch when I am playing music.  Also, the particular piece of Ironwood I used is from a tree that was going to be removed so Will harvested it.  How much more environmentally responsible can you get?

In my next post I will start describing the building process.  As always, let me know if you have any questions or comments.