A Guide to Customising Your Handmade Open Back...

A Guide to Customising

Your Handmade Open Back Banjo

A G u i d e T o C u s t o m i s i n g Y o u r H a n d m a d e O p e n B a c k B a n j o

Table of Contents

Introduction.................................................................................................................................................5

Why would you choose a handmade banjo? ..............................................................................................6

What to consider when choosing a Luthier................................................................................................7

Calculating import costs from the US.........................................................................................................9

How to choose the wood for your banjo....................................................................................................10

Maple..........................................................................................................................................................10

American Walnut........................................................................................................................................11

Ash ..............................................................................................................................................................11

Cherry..........................................................................................................................................................11

Choosing your fingerboard .......................................................................................................................12

Ebony..........................................................................................................................................................12

Rosewood....................................................................................................................................................12

Cocobolo.....................................................................................................................................................12

Frailing Scoop.............................................................................................................................................13

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Rim choices................................................................................................................................................14

Tone Ring....................................................................................................................................................15

Neck strength – the truss rod ...................................................................................................................16

Tuner buttons and tuners..........................................................................................................................17

The dowel stick...........................................................................................................................................18

Plastic head or velum?...............................................................................................................................19

Peg head.....................................................................................................................................................20

Bridges........................................................................................................................................................21

Tail piece....................................................................................................................................................22

Binding.......................................................................................................................................................22

Rim hardware: brackets, shoes, hooks and nuts......................................................................................23

Fret wire.....................................................................................................................................................24

Strings........................................................................................................................................................24

Inlay............................................................................................................................................................25

Choosing a finish.......................................................................................................................................26

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Any other questions? ................................................................................................................................27

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Introduction

Hello there! I'm Malcolm McLeod, a banjo Luthier based in Brighton, England. I wanted to put together a guide covering the questions that often crop up when players are thinking about buying a handmade open back banjo.

Hopefully, if you're thinking about making your next banjo custom made to your preference, you'll find this this guide useful.

I'll be going through a lot of the questions people have when selecting wood, fingerboards, bridges, strings, tuners and more.

This should help you make choices to suit your style of playing and give you things to chat about with your own Luthier. If you have any questions at all, you can always contact me:

Email: [email protected]

Telephone: 0787-0505-662

Now, let's get the kettle on shall we?

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http://brightonbanjos.com/contact-brighton-banjos/


Why would you choose a handmade banjo?

When your playing style develops, you probably find that you want more individuality from your instrument. Something that matches your sound and preference, but also something that looks a little bit different to an off-the-shelf instrument.

You want to be playing “your” banjo.

With a handmade instrument, even in base models, there are a lot of custom options to reflect your playing style and personality.

If you think that's the way you want to go, read on to find some of the common options you can think about when working with a maker on your next banjo.

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What to consider when choosing a LuthierA Luthier is just a fancy name of someone who builds or repairs instruments and there are many excellent makers around the world to choose from.

So what do you need to consider when deciding who to work with?

• Signature build style

• Location

• Cost

• Additional costs (delivery / import / custom options)

• Wait time

Let's have a little look at some of the things you need to think about for each one...

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Signature Build Style

Most makers have developed a framework and design for a style of banjo that they know works, that they enjoy making and which lends itself to customisation.

So, you might choose a maker because you've seen their banjos before and fallen in love with them, or perhaps because they're similar to the instruments you've played and enjoyed.

It really doesn't matter what attracts you to a maker, but a great starting point is to find someone who is already making a style you like, and then exploring the options for customisation.

Location

You can find excellent banjo Luthiers in the US, UK and wider Europe. Consider if location is important to you. People have great experiences customising their banjo over a distance, whilst other players feel more comfortable being able to visit a workshop and talk to the maker face to face.

Cost

The cost of your handmade banjo will tend to vary depending on the maker, and also the level of customisation you have. Makers may have have a “base” model, with the choice of inlay, fingerboards, wood etc as options on top of that price. Currently you can buy a custom banjo from around £1,500 from the US and UK up to £4,000+ depending on maker, customisation and materials.

Wait Time

The wait time on a handmade banjo can be anything from a few months, up to a year! A beautiful instrument is worth the wait, but you may want to ask how long it will be when you enquire.

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Calculating import costs from the US

One thing you will want to consider are any delivery or import duties. Currently the import rate on a banjo is 3.2% and the VAT is 20%

What does that mean?

Here's a quick breakdown based on those rates with a USD/GBP exchange rate of 0.6328

• Total Banjo Cost (including Shipping and insurance) £1500

• Import Duty £48.00

• VAT £309.60

• Total Import / duty costs £357.60

• Total Landed cost for a £1500 banjo £1857.60

It's good to be aware of this additional cost so there are no surprises if you do order a banjo from the US.

Of course, if you're in the UK and came to McLeod Banjos, we can avoid that cost, or put that extra £357.60 into more customisation for your banjo. :-)

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How to choose the wood for your banjo

Wood choice isn't just aesthetic, different wood densities can also affect the tone. Here's a run down of some of the properties of common wood choices for handmade banjos.

Maple

Unstained maple is very pale in colour. There are different varieties and some are harder than others, but for the most part it's a very hard dense wood. European variety is slightly softer than American rock maple.

You can also get different types of naturally occurring effects including:

• Birdseye Maple – tiny dappled markings

• Flame Maple – similar to tiger stripes

• Curly Maple - a scattered, striking pattern

These differences occur due to the different parts of the tree, and sometimes the way the wood is sawn. Some can be very flamboyant to look at.

Maple is probably the most common wood for banjos. Generally when used in the neck, it makes a harder, brighter sound of banjo compared to a walnut neck for example.

It has a close grain and is a strong resilient wood. Nice and stable, works well for instruments.

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American Walnut

This is a dark, almost chocolatey looking wood with a fairly pronounced grain. Quite a bit softer than maple. It generally makes a warmer sounding banjo with a bit less volume and punch than maple.

American Walnut has gained a lot of popularity in the old time world because of the warmer sound and players don't mind losing a bit of volume to compensate for that.

It's great stuff to work with and looks lovely and because it's not generally used in mass production banjos, it really stands out.

Ash

Ash has a similar density to maple. It's also pale but with a very oak-like grain going through which is quite pronounced. It has a slightly different tone from maple even though it is very close to maple in characteristics (very hard and dense).

Cherry

Cherry has a slightly pinkish hue. Looks a little bit like maple at a casual glance but isn't as dense. Cherry really makes wonderful banjo pots. With its pinky /reddy colour it works well with a maple neck.

When choosing the wood for your neck and rim your maker can advise on the different properties. If you choose different wood for the neck and the rim but are concerned about contrasting colours, there is always the option of choosing certain stains to make the colours more complementary (see section on “choosing a finish”)

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Choosing your fingerboard

It's important to choose a fingerboard that you like the feel of, that holds frets well and resists wear. And even though you're only looking at a 5mm thickness, the type of wood you choose will affect the sound you're after.

Here are some popular choices:

Ebony

For fingerboards, ebony is often thought of as king. It's the heart wood in the centre of the tree and can be jet black, is very smooth and holds frets well. It's very dense, close-grained and really shows off mother of pearl if you have an inlay.

Rosewood

Rosewood is a great sounding wood, but sometimes seen as a lesser relative to ebony although there's no good reason for this. It's a great tone wood, holds frets well and is reddish brown in colour. It can sound slightly warmer than ebony.

Cocobolo

Personally, I think cocobolo is a great wood. It's very dense (it will sink in water), smooth and is part of the rosewood family. It tends to have very striking grain patterns and can vary in colour from a yellowy hue to a blood red. It's very individual and looks striking. As it's more dense than ebony it can make the sound marginally brighter. Personally if I use this wood for the fingerboards, I don't tend to bind the edges because it looks so pretty.

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Frailing Scoop

The frailing scoop gives more clearance over the higher frets to enable you to play closer to the end of the fingerboard where the sound is more plunky. This is sometimes called the “sweet spot”

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Illustration 1: A simple S-style frailing scoop


Rim choices

Good rule of thumb with rims is that the wall thickness is very important. A thick wall, say 3/4 inch is going to give you a brighter sound and more treble, possibly a bit more volume.

A thinner rim will accentuate the bass better and you'll lose some of the highs. The main reason is that when the rim is thicker, it's more rigid and the sound you're hearing is more to do with the head.

With thinner walls, you're hearing more of the rim reverberate with the head as well.

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Tone Ring

Similar to when you have a thicker rim, when you fit a heavy tone ring you hear more of the head rather than the rim.

Personally I prefer to build lighter open backs to go for a more woody sound. Heavier rings do give you more volume but you get a harder sound.

There are hundreds of rings to choose from, so let your sound preferences guide you to the best style for your playing.

Here you can see an American Walnut rim with the tone ring resting on top:

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Neck strength – the truss rod

A truss rod is a stiffener that lies beneath the fingerboard to strengthen the neck. Options are adjustable and non-adjustable. Most makers prefer non-adjustable rods for open back banjos.

With adjustable truss rods, if the neck starts to bend or buckle you can get it out by adjusting it.

To be honest, this tweaking isn't really needed when you're careful about choosing the wood, and making sure each stage of the build is inspected for fit.

There are different options for truss rods. I prefer to use carbon fiber rods as they are so light you don't have to remove a lot of wood, it's stronger than the wood you remove, and transfers sound more efficiently than steel.

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Tuner buttons and tuners

Tuner buttons are purely cosmetic and can be wood, plastic or mother of pearl. It really is down to your personal taste.

It's worth asking for a good quality set of planetary tuners. These take the name from planets orbiting around each other. It means that when you turn the tuner, the gears are in a constant mesh and there's zero back lash or sloppiness. Bad tuners tend to jump if you're tuning down because the gears slip. Planetary tuners don't do this and make it much easer to tune your banjo.

Here you can see a photo of planetary tuners.

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The dowel stick

The dowel stick helps locate the neck onto the pot and join it to the pot. It's an important part of the sound because it controls the neck join, keeps everything in place and also transmits sound down the neck.

Coordinator Rods

In modern banjos you can get twin coordinator rods. With this you have 2 screws (lag bolts ) in the neck and the rods pass through the rim and screw to the other side of the rim held by a nut.

Some say coordinator rods are useful for adjusting action, but using them to change your banjo means you skew the shape of the rim which can affect the fit of the tone ring.

Here, on the right, you can see an example of a dowel stick.

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Plastic head or velum?

All sorts of plastic heads are available in various thickness, crown height and finishes. Crown height is how high or low the edge of the head sits on the rim. It doesn't affect the sound, it's just for the design and the fit.

Clear heads will give you a very bright sound, frosted coatings give you a warmer sound. Frosted heads are usually favoured by bluegrass players and may be a bit tinny sounding for an open back.

Normal choices for old time players include amber heads - called so because of the amber colour. These are thicker than frosted head but still have quite a bit of snap. Fibre skin heads are very thick heads and give quite a tubby sound.

Velums

A velum is an animal skin. Calf skin is usually favoured for banjos. You can get goat skin but is too thick for some people.

Plastic heads are of course maintenance-free but velums do sound lovely although you have to keep an eye on them. Velums require more adjustment but they're not as difficult as people think.

You do have to tighten and slacken them to fit the environment (heat, humidity etc). However, they do sound great when they're done right.

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Peg head

With handmade banjos, the maker usually has a number of designs that you can choose from.

You may be able to choose different styles, but most makers don't want to copy other peoples designs unless it's a reproduction neck for an old style banjo.

You tend to have a veneer on the peg head which matches the fingerboard, and you can also get back strapping which is a veneer on the back or the peg head. This doesn't affect the sound, can add a little bit of strength but it's mostly for cosmetic reasons rather than anything else.

Here you can see a front view of a peghead and a side-view with back-strapping veneer.

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Bridges

Bridges vary and have a huge effect on tone. It's an important part of the banjo because everything comes through it. They can be different woods, but most common is maple with an ebony top and 3 feet standing on the head.

One bridge that works well on one banjo doesn't always work well on another and the bridge choice is individual to each banjo.

Generally the weight and thickness of the bridge is important. A thicker, heavier bridge will improve low end whereas a thinner lighter bridge will improve highs.

Bridge height

The standard height is 5/8 of an inch and usually go in increments of 5/8 11/16 up to 3/4. A higher bridge gives more mass and affects the angle of the strings to the tail piece. A higher bridge will generally give you more volume.

You don't want to go below 5/8 as you start to lose tone and you have less space between the strings and the head for your fingers.

Makers will usually advise on bridges based on what the player is looking for in sound.

Bridges can vary from £1.50 to £40. A lot of this is build quality and how much hand finishing is involved.

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Tail piece

The tail piece affects the sound a lot because it anchors the strings.

No knot tale pieces are the standard old time tail pieces. It's based on an early tailpiece for looped string and they are usually nickel plated brass.

If you want to experiment with a harder sound for the banjo you can fit an adjustable tailpiece which are more common to bluegrass music.

Binding

The binding goes round the edge of the banjo, round the edge of the rim, and fingerboards though not necessarily both. Binding is really a personal preference and doesn't affect the sound.

Binding choices are usually:

• Wood

• Plastic

• Celluloid

It really depends on what you think looks best. Generally, really dark banjos don't look great with for black binding. Instead you want something that is a tasteful contrast or complements the wood.

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Rim hardware: brackets, shoes, hooks and nuts

Brackets, shoes, hooks and nuts work to keep the head tensioned and provide adjustment and help you maintain the correct head tension. They also add to the cosmetic appeal .

You can have different numbers of brackets on your banjo. During the early part of the 1900s, manufacturers used to have 46-50 brackets on as people assumed that more was better. However, all that happened was you had a banjo covered in hooks and every time you adjusted one, the 2 on either side undid...

Somewhere between 18-28 is perfectly adequate. Anything you attach to the rim will affect the sound, as it interferes with how it vibrates. You want enough brackets to keep things tensioned evenly without going to extremes.

Some makers make their own custom hardware, come in different materials including:

• Brass

• Bronze

• Nickel plate

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Fret wire

Most old time banjo makers tend to favour fairly light skinny fret wire. It echoes the old vintage makers which is what they used at the turn of the century. But you don't have to have that, you can choose the fret wire that best suits how you prefer to play.

You can have nickel wire, various alloys and stainless steels.

The main difference is that the stainless steel and alloys like Evo Gold are much harder wearing than the softer nickel wires.

Strings

This is really down to player preference and you can usually talk to your Luthier about having your banjo made with your own string preference.

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Inlay

Inlay will vary by maker with some having their own style or working from standard or custom designs.

Traditionally, inlay would have been mother of pearl, but today there are many more choices including:

• Abalone

• Lapaz Lazuri

• Turquoise stone

• Silver

• Bone

You can pretty much use anything, it just depends on the effect you'd like.

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Choosing a finish

Modern acrylic lacquer

This provides a durable finish without masking the style of the wood

French polish

Can give your wood a beautiful finish, but is not as hard wearing as the acrylic lacquer

Oil rub or wax finish

This gives your banjo a lovely lustre, but will need redoing from time to time. It can also feel tacky to the touch when your hands get hot.

Staining

You can darken or enhance woods with different stains. You can also tint the lacquer.

This works well if you you have different a different pot and neck wood and want to try and blend the colours to match more.

As a light wood, Ash works well with a bit of subtle staining to stop it looking too pale. With woods that have stripes or patterns in such as maple, staining can be used to make some of the features pop out.

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Any other questions?

I hope this guide has been useful, but if you have any other questions about buying or customising a handmade open back banjo I'd be happy to help.

To give me a call, the best number to reach me on is: 0787-0505-662

Or you can email me: [email protected]

Or you can visit the website. Www.brightonbanjos.com

And if you're in Brighton, you can find me at the workshop (visits by appointment so I can give you my full attention)

Unit 8, 31 Quebec Street, Brighton, BN2 9UZ

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http://Www.brightonbanjos.com/

mailto:[email protected]


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