Here are some before photos of an old banjo uke in need of some TLC!
All done! New head, tuners, cleaned up hardware, scouring, elbow grease and a couple of coats of shellac.
Here’s a banjo Rim Cap repair.
I aged the piece of maple with potassium permanganate before French polishing it.
Next up, the most interesting banjo repair I’ve ever worked on. My friend’s banjo had been infested with museum worms — the kind that clean bones for museums and forensic anthropologists. Since older banjo rims are made of laminated wood glued with hide glue, the worms ate all the glue that was holding the rim together, leaving an empty shell!
Note all the worm castings in the rim.
I managed to save the Brazilian rosewood veneer on the outside and inside of the banjo and found an old rim that was the same size. I shaped it like the old one to fit all the hardware.
I also found some marquetry that matched that on the resonator, amazingly enough!
I made a tiny 5 string banjo out of this Slingerlands banjo uke for my grandson when he was 4 years old, by adding a little wood to the side of the neck so I could put the 5th string tuner on it!
Restoring the "Bastardtone" Banjo This was what I like to call a "Banjo-in-a-bag". A labor of love for my daughter for Christmas. I'm not sure of the maker of the banjo, but it was old. Ruthy has a banjo uke with the same marketry on the rim.
So, it needed a new dowel stick and it's neck reset:
A new fingerboard:
All new frets.
The rimcap was destroyed, so I gave it a new veneer:
Don't get nervous. The blue tape is just ot hold it in place while I turn it upside down to glue it!
It needed peghead veneer on the front and back:
I used maple veneer on the back and ebony on the front:
An ebony heel cap and fretted the fingerboard:(I saved and re-used the mother of pearl inlay)
I think she liked it!
MERRY CHRISTMAS RUTHY!
