Home made 5 String Banjo, Low budget built from parts and some scrap.

This project was to build my own 5 string banjo on as low a budget as possible, yet still making something that looks good and sounds nice.

I have recently taken up the Ukulele after over 20 years of struggling to learn guitar and failing because I have short fingers and a couple of injuries that don't help either, I found the Uke was so easy to play due to the narrow neck.

I then started to wonder if the narrow neck on a banjo would be also as easy to play.

I was looking on e-bay one weekend and saw a complete 5 string banjo up for auction and i bid £20 and won.  I then started to look for the other bits and found a bridge for a few quid and 3 sets of strings for £5.  that left only the pot and skin.

I had managed to find a download of the Fox Fire books and they have a wonderful section on making your own banjo.

the pot was going to be the problem, I studied the books and though that my skills with wood are not just up to speed yet to try and make a pot.

Last week I was at the dentist and on my way back stopped in at a little old music shop that is an Aladdin's cave of cool stuff. I got a nice calfskin hide tambourine (with jingles) for £15 and the shop keeper said "your doing what?!" when i told him i was going to use it for a banjo pot.  After i explained what i was doing he even pulled out a nice chrome tailpiece that would do my job.

I at last had all the bits I needed to start my build.

I have never done anything like this before so I just used engineering skills rather than wood working skills so if it looks odd to some of you banjo guys I just didn't know any different I just did what seemed logical.

I think it turned out nice.. again pardon the pun.  It sounds great, has a nice tone and is quite loud.

The full project cost me £44 but the fun of building it was simply priceless.

I am just amazed how well it turned out, I honestly could not bring myself to part with this banjo as it sounds so nice and I can say that I put it together myself.

I was in a junk yard yesterday and I got an old chrome hubcap from a caravan that I plan to build a tenor or baritone ukulele banjo with, you just cant stop building instruments once you start.

I will post a video or sound clip once i can play a bit better.

Thanks for looking,

Andy.

Step 1 The parts.

The parts took me a few weeks to gather up, I wanted to do the best job i could so i did not rush this project.

I did a rough assembly with the bits and was happy with what it should hopefully look like.

Comments

[Water Child]

what does it sound like?

[Dr Qui]

Quite nice actually, the hide skin gives a much milder tone than a plastic head