For enthusiasts of early banjo
New gourd banjo
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Comment by Paul Draper on March 10, 2017 at 2:28pm
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Lucky friend
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Comment by Chris Prieto on March 11, 2017 at 3:07am
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It's a fun lil banjo. Got a few more in the works.
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Comment by Strumelia on March 11, 2017 at 11:48am
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What scale length di you make it from nut to middle of head, Chris?
What tuning do you like for it?
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Due to various snafus it came in at 23.5. But the friend I made for has lil T-Rex arms like I do. Currently tuned to D/G and it plays very well. I figured it be easier to tune up if desired vs being in E/A and trying to tune down.
I tried to make a very "my first fretless banjo". I tried to make action super low and space between strings is really wide. All things that bothered me about my first few banjos.
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lil T-rex arms... my laugh of the day! =;-D
With a slightly shorter scale like that, I'm guessing you have the Nylgut "Minstrel Set" on rather than the Nylgut "Classic set". The minstrel set is just a bit heavier so will work better for the shorter scale for you.
A slightly shorter scale helps on gourd banjos which will give you some peace of mind for when you crank it up to E/A.
I also find on gourd banjers that once you go over a certain tension on the strings (and assuming your pegs hold) you suddenly fall off a cliff in losing resonance...doesn't happen as much on hoop banjos. It's kind of creepy really how drastic the sound change is, you get this ominous feeling that something's gonna give... then when you back off and go a bit lower the rich resonance comes back right away. That's been my experience, anyway. The gourd tells you to 'cut it out' in no uncertain terms, like a donkey it'll just sit right down and refuse to cooperate.
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Yeah I went with the minstrel set. I just got a shorter menzies banjo that came with the classic set and even in A/E the strings were pretty flabby. I changed those to minstrel set too and it sounds great. He also used a *thick* goat skin very similar to African skins I use on djembe repairs which I never seen before but it sounds friggin nice
I have a sneaky suspicion skin thickness comes into play too. I usually use a medium to thick skin. But I went with a thinner one on this one for aesthetic reasons and it is more ringy and resonant. A nice high pitched hum and some belly rumbling which I generally only get from the hoop rigs. Thin skins almost sound hot to me I dunno, like slightly overdriven audio.
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You got that Menzies on Ebay? Cool I was looking at that. Yeah Jeff usually puts the classic set- I suspect because newbies want to tune up closer to oldtime tunings which puts a big strain on the strings -and the thinner classic set can handle that better.
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I switched my Menzies gourds to the Minstrel sets. I have the classic set on two non-gourd banjos that I can use in oldtime sessions and tune right up to A and D oldtime tunings without capos.
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Oh nice that's good to know, I honestly never thought of taking the classical set past A/E since I'm so minstrel music centric at the moment.
I got hoop banjo with a blue mahoe neck he had on Facebook this january. I spoiled myself for Xmas and picked up two banjos :)
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Personally if the scale length on your oldtime banjo is more than 27" I would hesitate to tune up to oldtime A and D tunings. (not talking minstrel tunings here). Make sure you run some waxed dentral floss back and forth in your nut and bridge slots to buff down any sharp burrs- check your tailpiece for sharp edges too first. Nylon strings get cut more easily by a tiny sharp edge.
What was the serial number on the Blue neck Menzies you got? I think maybe it was one I was cravin' ! =8-o
...and Did you also get the Menzies gourd that was just on Ebay last week?
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