butterfingersbeck - Posted - 10/07/2015:  16:08:20

Hi! I thought you might like to know about a recent project of mine. Earlier this year, my guitarist son Thomas and I had been discussing 6-string banjos, or "banjitars" as we call them. One consequence of this was that I wrote and recorded a comedy country song called "Don't Buy a Banjo, My Son", but that was it.

At some point, Thomas decided to replace the neck on his Squier Telecaster guitar for one with a gloss finish, so he ordered a replacement neck on Ebay. We now had a spare neck, and no idea what to do with it. That's when I had a typical "mad dad" brain-wave. "I think we can use that old guitar neck to build a banjitar!"

I made some measurements and concluded that a 12" frame drum would do the job, and ordered one from Hobgoblin Music. I managed to find a short trapeze tailpiece on Ebay, and, after an extensive search, a 6-string banjo bridge from China. Since the Telecaster neck was designed to be screwed directly onto a guitar body, I worked out that a narrow plank running across the back of the drum shell could accommodate both the neck joint and the tailpiece anchor without putting undue stress on the drum.

When the drum arrived, I was concerned to see that it had an odd number (seven) of tuning lugs evenly spaced around the shell, rather than the even number which I had imagined it would have. There was no way that the body plank could fit symmetrically between pairs of lugs, but careful measurement suggested that there was just enough space for an asymmetrical arrangement, with three lugs on the bass side and four on the treble. I marked up the rim of the shell, and Thomas cut two 6 cm wide by 2.5cm deep slots using a hacksaw and rasps. Meanwhile I used a Surform plane to trim the pine plank to the correct width for a friction fit.

Since the fingerboard had to be raised above the rim of the drum, I made an extra block to go between the plank and the heel of the neck, with clearance holes for the neck screws. The screws themselves were chosen to be longer than standard Fender-style neck screws, but were attached in exactly the same way, with a steel neck-plate on the back.

Once the neck was firmly attached to the plank, I pushed the plank firmly into the slots in the rim of the drum, and then set about creating a block at the other end to secure the tailpiece. I drilled two holes in the plank, and screwed on a small block of pine, and then attached the tailpiece to the side of the block. A set of steel strings followed, and I put the bridge in place on the skin and tuned the banjo to pitch.

CRACK!

My moment of triumph was short-lived. The pine tail-block had split horizontally along the grain. To be fair, the tailpiece was still holding on, but it was clearly not going to survive any amount of serious playing. Then I remembered that our neighbour had just thrown out a broken kitchen chair made of finest Scandinavian beech wood. I popped downstairs, tore a leg off the hapless chair, and rushed back up to our flat, where I fashioned a new hardwood tail-block. This proved to be rock-solid.

 

So now we have our very own 6-string banjo. It sounds great and plays nicely and in tune. One final modification I made was to shim the neck with a 1p coin to lower the action. Thomas and I both enjoy playing it, and I have used it on a number of my home recordings. It cost £40 and took an evening's work. Not too bad!

We are also considering attaching a humbucking guitar pickup to the top of the plank, with a jack socket in the thumb-hole at the bottom edge of the drum.

Edited by - butterfingersbeck on 10/07/2015 16:13:04

Beck of banjo

Neck joint

Tail block

PeterJ - Posted - 10/08/2015:  04:59:28

Genius!

butterfingersbeck - Posted - 10/08/2015:  08:02:59

Here's a song I recorded using the Telebanjitar alongside nylon-string rhythm guitar, muted Telecaster (just audible, doubling the bass line) electric upright bass and organ, all played by myself.

butterfingersbeck - Posted - 10/08/2015:  08:45:51

And here is the song that started it all. No banjo (we hadn't built it at the time!), but I'm playing nylon-string rhythm guitar, Telecaster, Dobro (borrowed from Thomas), electric upright bass and piano.

Edited by - butterfingersbeck on 10/08/2015 08:53:45

mike gregory - Posted - 10/08/2015:  08:53:34

While I congratulate you on being a perfectly wonderful Mad Dad, I am appalled by your purchase of a six string bridge from halfway around the word.



Whittling a bridge from a scrap of lumber, or even a beef bone from the stew pot, is a simple task.

Edited by - mike gregory on 10/08/2015 08:56:14

butterfingersbeck - Posted - 10/08/2015:  09:03:29

Of course, you are quite right from an environmental point of view. However, I don't think my DIY skills extend to whittling little bits of wood or bone (the close-ups of my workmanship will confirm this). Strangely enough, the day after I ordered the bridge I actually found a discarded banjo bridge on the ground on my way home.



Of course it was a 5-string.

Edited by - butterfingersbeck on 10/08/2015 09:04:03

mike gregory - Posted - 10/08/2015:  09:06:40

Free advice:

If you replace the 6th string with a FIRST, tuned to the same E as the real first, and the 5th string with a SECOND, tuned down from B to A, you might be pleased to hear a more 'Bluegrassy" sound, with exactly the same fingers on exactly the same spots as a guitar, but with higher, "banjo-sounding" notes.

PS#1 : Very good "American" accent on the songs.

PS#2: Remember what Allan Sherman said about free advice:

butterfingersbeck - Posted - 10/08/2015:  09:57:58

I'm an Allan Sherman fan (as is my non-musician younger son), and I hadn't heard that one before. Brilliant!



My country & western alter-ego is called Wayne Gutbucket III. He looks just like me.



Regarding my "American" accent, it may have helped that I lived in a suburb of Chicago between the ages of five and ten, although, I lost my accent very quickly after I left the USA.

"PS#2: Remember what Allan Sherman said about free advice..."

Edited by - butterfingersbeck on 10/08/2015 09:59:00

Helix - Posted - 10/24/2015:  06:34:03

I really like the tailpiece, great job.

Homeland Security

butterfingersbeck - Posted - 10/25/2015:  11:32:20

quote:

---

Originally posted by Helix

 

I really like the tailpiece, great job.

---

Did you build that one? It's very cool. I think Fender-style headstocks look good on banjos. Is yours a standard 5-string, and if so, how does the drone string work?

butterfingersbeck - Posted - 10/25/2015:  11:36:26

Another song featuring the Telebanjitar!

Helix - Posted - 10/28/2015:  03:28:40

A regular performer put that together, the 5th string is open and goes all the way down. I built the rim and he added the neck.

Mr. Gutbucket, we have all of your albums from the 70's