Making of a Banjolele – Part 2
by Josh on Mar.26, 2010, under Making Things
In my last post I had just finished cutting out the rough profile of the neck. The next step was to shape the neck using rasps and files, patience was definitely the key for this part. I neglected to take any pictures of this step. This is a shot after shaping, with the peg head and fret board wood temporarily in place to get an idea of what the finished neck will look like.
This led to the next logical step, gluing on the ebony peg head veneer.
After the glue had fully cured I moved on to cutting the profile of the peg head. I drew up a sketch of what I wanted in illustrator, the dimensions for the holes were based off of other pegheads to ensure that my strings wouldn’t go wonky in the end. The profile was cut out of a scrap piece of plastic I had laying around, this gave me a nice guide to follow when I cut everything on the bandsaw. The look that I was after had the cuts perpendicular to the fret board rather than the pegboard. To achieve this a simple jig was needed to hold the piece level relative to the fret board surface.
Ta-da! The next step will be to drill the holes for the pegs and to file the edges smooth
October 18th, 2010 on 9:56 am
Wow! A banjolele! Never heard of that before! Banjo-ukelele cross?! This is very interesting. I love making all kinds of things with my hands as well and I like what you’ve got here! Keep up the good work! Anyone brave enough to strike out on a project like this on their own is talented! I’d definately let everyone know I was following this if it were a blog. Goodluck on the banjolele! And Godbless,