3/10/13 - Banjo Boys, Chapter 14

Clint at the end of the day with his assembled banjo!

Installing tuning pegs

The B-Boys met at Hardee's at 8:21 for a healthy breakfast.  After proceeding to the shop, we opened up the big door, moved Winston outside (he got a bath later in the day!), and set up shop by moving the "messy" tools outside.  We decided to help Clint get caught up, since he has missed the last couple of weeks.

During the day, Clint got his main dowel hole drilled, crafted his dowel rod from scratch, got the dowel rod glued into the heel of the neck, and removed and replaced the ebony heel cap with a thicker piece of ebony. What a day of progress.

My tuning pegs installed

Monty had brought a brand new brad-point 3/8" drill bit that we needed to drill the holes for the tuning pegs.  Both Clint and yours truly got our holes marked and drilled without incident.  The big concerns when drilling these holes are to locate them precisely and to avoid any splintering or "tear-out" of the edges of the holes.

The mounted trishield

On my banjo, I also drilled a small hole in the dowel rod for a steel pin that is part of the hardware that holds the neck firmly against the rim.  I got all the hardware mounted and it works perfectly.  I also made a small sliver of walnut that I glued on the surface of the heel cap that presses against the rim.  Because of the shape of the rim, there had been a tiny gap there that is now filled.  I also finally glued the Buick trishield emblem into its recessed cavity on the peghead.

The hardware that holds
the neck in place

Monty, in the Banjo Boy tradition of helping his fellows, assisted both Clint and me all day.  He brought the pattern he had used to space his tension ring hook brackets, and I was able to mark my pot with alignment marking for my brackets.  We dined at the Pizza Hut in Fayetteville.  And to top the day off, as Clint was filing his dowel rod hole in his rim, I found time to wash Winston, who had gotten pretty grungy from being outside in rain and snow over the last several weeks.

All three of us now have things that really look like banjos!

Monty assists Clint in drilling his rim using a
metal-cutting hole saw that Monty located on line

P.S.  I just ordered this meat serving fork on eBay.  There's got to be a way to make a 5-string tailpiece out of it, since it has 5 tines.