Home Made Banjitar

Pretty simple to make-
BODY- Made of pie plates as bought in the market (several stuck together) /// NECK - long thin piece of wood/// TUNING PEGS - I used some spare pegs /// BRIDGE and NUT - small pieces of wood cut to size ///STRINGS - spare guitar strings

PUT it TOGETHER-
1. puncture the pie plates with a knife or screwdriver and slide the long thin piece of wood through.
2. Drill small holes towards the bottom of wood to poke strings through
3. Drill larger holes towards top of neck for tuning pegs to poke through .
4. Insert tuning pegs and screw into place from behind neck
5. cut notch towards top of neck to hold nut in place.
6. cut nut from small piece of wood with small notches for strings
7.Cut bridge from another small piece of wood to lie on body. You may also need a shim of some sort underneath to raise the height a little.
8. Eye hooks screwed into the top toward the tuning pegs are helpful to guide the strings
9. Insert strings through holes in bottom and string into tuning pegs. As strings are tightened, put bridge towards the bottom of body and tension will hold into place.
10. tune to an open tuning so a chord plays with all strings open
11. experiment with fingering of notes on strings to find correct spots for notes and mark neck. Also experiment with position of bridge for tuning.

I made my instrument about 2 years ago and still play it from time to time. I was amazed that it worked. For more precision with the intonation there are on line tools to estimate note positions based on the length of the neck.