Steve's DIY Banjourine

[Steve Harrison]

This is my attempt  to convert an old fretless banjo which had a warped arm into a banjourine.  I'm by no means a wood worker so I approached the construction of a new arm with an engineers eye. I made it by laminating 5 scrap pieces of 10mm thick oak and maple I had by shaping each piece  on my scroll saw before gluing them all together as a wood sandwich. I set the scale length at 500mm and made the fretboard wider than usual to accommodate my size 11 hands. I then ebonized it using printer ink and gave it three coats of silk finish acrylic varnish. I used Grover tuners purchased from Stewmac. It's a bit Heath Robinson but I'm pleased with the result and it has a good tone although it feels like I'm playing on cobwebs...Steve.

[Karen Smith]

Good job making an old instrument playable again!   Is that a 3D-printed tailpiece?

[Steve Harrison]

Hi Karen, no its a piece of beef shin bone which I got from my local butcher some years back.. It was boiled for a couple of hours to get rid of all the detritus and I used part of it to make the tail piece by cutting, shaping and polishing. I also use it to make banjo nuts but I hadn't enough left for the banjourine....Steve.

Karen Smith said:

Good job making an old instrument playable again!   Is that a 3D-printed tailpiece?

[Karen Smith]

Very resourceful, and makes your instrument all the more unique!