Dear Friends,
Hello! I am working on putting up more and more interesting things soon! It is a slow process. Please bear with me! -Franny
P.S. I am still ironing out some kinks on the site. If you have problems, please send me a message.
I had been looking at banjos online for a while and loved the fancy designs on some of the tenor and 5-string banjos I came across. I really wanted a banjolele but I couldn’t find one that I liked the looks of and was in my price range. So I decided to buy a old one and customize it myself. I did it all with hand tools so it is a little rough in areas. It has been quite an adventure!
I stripped off the old finish and reshaped the headstock with a handsaw and file. Then I stained the whole thing with a dark stain. I started carving inlay cavities in the fretboard and the headstock with chisels and knives but that process got to be too time consuming so I switched to a dremel tool. Doing the inlay was so frustrating that I forgot to stop and document it! Also, at this point, the building I was working in caught on fire one night and I wasn’t even sure if the banjo survived. Luckily, it made it with only a smoky smell to tell the tale.
Anyways, I took it home to work on and after much trial and error (mostly error), I finished the inlay in the headstock and the markers on the fretboard. I also put in new shiny pearloid tuners to match the inlay.
Stretching the skin was also a learning process. I had to do it twice to get the bezel to sit properly. I decided to do a drawing on the head rather than paint it all white. There’s a whale under the bridge.
I finally finished it and then decided to build a case for it (as seen in the last photograph) because I couldn’t find a good banjolele case. I’ll save that story for another day.
Hey Franny…old smokie the franjolele looks wonderful…I can’t wait to hear the results…love the smashing site…it’s very generous of you to give your wonderful songs to us…I especially enjoy “I’ve seen giants. very touching…you should be rightfully proud of your output…Keep it up…NBC…
Nick: Thank you!–I am dying to hear what this will sound like too. I am having some troubles with putting on a new head right now. I applied too much tension and snapped the tension hoop! Now I need to find some way to weld it back together.