A great Friday in the workshop today, finishing off these two tackhead banjos with some Kenny Baker cranked up on the stereo!
Both have 11" 2 ply steam bent Ash rims, Goat skin heads, Ash necks and Maple bridges.
​Tom opted for additional Ebony fingerboard and peghead overlay and Alan went for Grover Champion friction tuners and a geared 5th.

Tom's below (yes, the 4th string is wound the wrong way, a momentary lapse of concentration whilst listening to Kenny's awesome fiddling!)

Alan's

Finished Mona's banjo today, a rather nice short scale fretless with discreet markers. Neck is  a Cherry 2-piece with 23.5" scale Ebony board, peghead overlay and heel cap, strung up with Nylgut Classics and married to an old 'Matthews' pot.

Heels, scoops and pegheads cut on the 2 Tackheads this week (Alan's left, Tom's right), just need to finish carving the necks, shape top and bottom of rims, make dowel sticks, plenty of sanding and they'll be ready for staining!

It has been a while since my last update, I had a few weeks off for a much needed holiday, spent a week doing some more DIY stuff to the house and just spent  last week sourcing/ordering materials, typing up new orders, servicing tools and doing some general banjo luthiery work.
This week I've been getting my arse into gear and carrying on with the commissions I had started before my holiday, Mona's fretless banjo has just had the 1st coat of oil applied and should be playing by the end of next week. The 2 tackheads are roughed out ready for working on next week and both should be at the oiling stage by next Friday.
These last few weeks I have received a huge amount of new commissions, this means the wait time for new orders has now gone up to 9 months. Some exciting builds to look forward to (for me anyway), an 'Ashborn', a 'Tubaphone' and a long neck being three of them.