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Comment by flatfoot johnny on August 7, 2012 at 9:39pm

Howdy fellow banjo freaks... Thanks Rand for pointing me in this direction. I make Canjos, Gourd banjos, grain measure banjos and Appalachian Mountain banjos... not yet made a cigarbox banjo... but im sure i will soon.

Comment by Rand Moore on July 29, 2012 at 7:00pm

And try searching Youtube videos. I haven't looked at this one on building 5-string banjo necks, but it looks promising. My kid is trying to sleep in the same room, so I can't turn on the audio. Hopefully I'll see this post again and remember to watch the video in the morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoXKqamv8Fc&feature=channel&...

Comment by Rand Moore on July 29, 2012 at 6:48pm

Maybe the 3rd time will be charmed...

 

Hi Jim.

I'd try drawing my own plans. There's not that much different between a Cigar Box Guitar and a Cigar Box Banjo unless you want to add a skin covered drum head which will definately complicate the process. As an alternative to a drum head, you might consider using something like a 6" diameter OldLowe brass or aluminum resonator cone. They are pretty easy to install and give the instrument a high pitched metalic sound, but without the hassle of having to adjust head tensions and the like of real banjos. The next hard part of a banjo (I'm assuming you are talking 5-string banjo) is the neck with that extra 5th string part of the neck and the 5th string tuner. I still haven't built a Cigar Box banjo, but it seems you might want to evolve your CBG plans over to a CB Banjo over multiple builds. For example, build a 4-string tenor banjo with a drum head mounted in the cigar box. Then build a 5-string banjo neck on your next instrument, and then for a 3rd build combine the two "technologies".

You might try Google, or check some dedicated banjo websites (www.banjohangout.org) or some of the luthier websites (luth.org). You might also consider starting with a kit banjo or a pre-built neck. One of the best sounding CB Banjos I've heard is on this video. In the video he talks about how he built it, but no actual photos of the process. May give you some ideas, though.

Good luck with your project and let us know how well it turns out.

-Rand.

Comment by Rand Moore on July 29, 2012 at 6:42pm

Aiyah! How did that happen?  Well let me re-post it...

 

Hi Jim.

I'd try drawing my own plans. Theres not that much different between a Cigar Box Guitar and a Cigar Box Banjo unless you want to add a skin covered drum hear which will definately complicate the process. As an alternative to a drum head, you might consider using something like a 8" diameter OldLowe brass or aluminum resonator cone. They are pretty easy to install and give the instrument a high pitched metalic sound, but without the hassle of having to addust head tensions and the like of real banjos. The next hard part of a banjo (I'm assuming you are talking 5-string banjo) is the neck with that extra 5th string part of the neck and the 5th string tuner. I still haven't built one a Cigar Box banjo, but it seems you might want to evolve your CBG plans over to a CB Banjo over multiple builds. For example, build a 4-string tenor banjo with a drum head mounted in the cigar box. Then build a 5-string guitar neck on your next instrument, and then for a 3rd build combine the two "technologies".

You might try Google, or check some dedicated banjo websites (www.banjohangout.org) or some of the luthier websites (luth.org). You might also consider starting with a kit banjo or a pre-built neck. One of the best sounding CB Banjos I've heard is on this video. In the video he talks about how he built it, but no actual photos of the process. May give you some ideas, though.

Good luck with your project and let us know how well it turns out.

-Rand.

Comment by Rand Moore on July 29, 2012 at 6:40pm

Hi Jim.

I'd try drawing my own plans. Theres not that much different between a Cigar Box Guitar and a Cigar B

Hi Jim.

I'd try drawing my own plans. Theres not that much different between a Cigar Box Guitar and a Cigar Box Banjo unless you want to add a skin covered drum hear which will definately complicate the process. As an alternative to a drum head, you might consider using something like a 8" diameter OldLowe brass or aluminum resonator cone. They are pretty easy to install and give the instrument a high pitched metalic sound, but without the hassle of having to addust head tensions and the like of real banjos. The next hard part of a banjo (I'm assuming you are talking 5-string banjo) is the neck with that extra 5th string part of the neck and the 5th string tuner. I still haven't built one a Cigar Box banjo, but it seems you might want to evolve your CBG plans over to a CB Banjo over multiple builds. For example, build a 4-string tenor banjo with a drum head mounted in the cigar box. Then build a 5-string guitar neck on your next instrument, and then for a 3rd build combine the two "technologies".

You might try Google, or check some dedicated banjo websites (www.banjohangout.org) or some of the luthier websites (luth.org). You might also consider starting with a kit banjo or a pre-built neck. One of the best sounding CB Banjos I've heard is on this video. In the video he talks about how he built it, but no actual photos of the process. May give you some ideas, though.

Good luck with your project and let us know how well it turns out.

-Rand.

x banjo unless you want to add a skin covered drum hear which will definately complicate the process. As an alternative to a drum head, you might consider using something like a 8" diameter OldLowe brass or aluminum resonator cone. They are pretty easy to install and give the instrument a high pitched metalic sound, but without the hassle of having to addust head tensions and the like of real banjos. The next hard part of a banjo (I'm assuming you are talking 5-string banjo) is the neck with that extra 5th string part of the neck and the 5th string tuner. I still haven't built one a Cigar Box banjo, but it seems you might want to evolve your CBG plans over to a CB Banjo over multiple builds. For example, build a 4-string tenor banjo with a drum head mounted in the cigar box. Then build a 5-string guitar neck on your next instrument, and then for a 3rd build combine the two "technologies".

You might try Google, or check some dedicated banjo websites (www.banjohangout.org) or some of the luthier websites (luth.org). You might also consider starting with a kit banjo or a pre-built neck. One of the best sounding CB Banjos I've heard is on this video. In the video he talks about how he built it, but no actual photos of the process. May give you some ideas, though.

Good luck with your project and let us know how well it turns out.

-Rand.

Comment by JIm Trussler on June 30, 2012 at 10:12am

Anyone point in the direction of plans for a CBG banjo?

Comment by Ben Jones on June 24, 2012 at 12:26pm

Hey Banjo-dudes.

Started my first banjo build today, my second CBG build ever.  Here's a picture: http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/banjoneck

I'm wondering about how to do the body, resonator-wise.  Right now I'm thinking about cutting a biscuit tin lid to size and mounting it on the cigar box lid, gluing it on the underside of it, and then mounting the bridge on the lid.  Is this a good idea?

Comment by Ryan Rose on April 23, 2012 at 4:42am

Did a little modification to my banjo the other day. It's always sounded great, but to my ears it didn't sound particularly banjo-y. It sounded a lot like my cbgs. No surprise there; same materials, same basic construction. Can't expect the strings to make all the difference. In my opinion, it had too much sustain. It didn't sound plunky enough. So I cut a strip of rubber off of my old wiper blades I just replaced, trimmed it up a little, and stuck it under the bridge, and it worked. It killed a little bit of the sustain (and a little volume), and it sounds a bit more like a banjo to my ears. It's also easily undone if I change my mind. I didn't take a picture, because all it would show is a black shadow under the bridge.

Comment by Rand Moore on January 26, 2012 at 3:16pm

Looks like a 5-string CBB (Banjo) won the 2011 Cigar Box Nation Builder's Challenge.Here's the photo...

Congratulations, Nathan King!  Nice build and such a graceful neck and headstock!

-Rand

Comment by Rand Moore on October 29, 2011 at 6:25pm

Hi Gary,

Welcome to the group.

When using any animal skin for a banjo drum head, be aware that the tension on the skin will change with changes in the weather, especially with regard to humidity. For this reason, I would recommend a drum design using some kind of tensioning system and I would have you reconsider using some kind of synthetic material for the drum head.

I think that building a good drum is an art in of itself and that it must first be perfected before you can build a good drum-based instrument. I have twice tried to make a drum-based 3-stringer, but on both occasions the results were pretty bad.  I'll relate my experiences here so hopefully you and others can avoid the mistakes I made.

My first attempt was to repair an old 9" hand drum which had a torn drum head. I decided to use a synthetic material called Tyvek® which one active Youtube banjo player (rpeek) had fair success with when he used it to replace the drum head on his banjo. This material is commonly used in Express Mail envelops which you can get for free at the Post Office. Not having tried this before, I thought I could temporarily tack the head material onto the drum frame, and then just go around the drum head pulling the material tight and hammering in tacks as described in this thread. However, I found that I couldn't really hold the material down tightly and hammer in tacks at the same time, so the result was a very loose and unusable drum head. I could probably done better if I had one of those big vise clamp on the corner of my work table (desk). The next time I try it, I'll devise some more sophisticated way of stringing up the head material onto the drum frame so that I can tighten it and hold the tightness before I hammer the tacks to the circumference of the drum head. I have a drawing here of what I'm thinking. 

On my second attempt, I used a cheap 9" hand drum with the skin already stretched over it. This would allow me to get around the problem of having to stretch material over a drum frame and tacking it tightly down. I build it in my "office/wood working" room and had the air condition on when I build the instrument. The results were not that bad, until I took the instrument out of the air conditioned (dry) environment and had it sit awhile. While when I first tuned it up it seemed to work fine, but then next day w/o air conditioning the skin head had sagged and a taller bridge failed to fix the problem because it would push the drum skin down onto the neck. Now, as I normally do, I had cut off about 1/4" along the neck-thru part of the neck to avoid having the sound board (or drum head) from coming into contact with the neck. This now appears not to to be enough, so I will have to rework the neck to take off maybe another 1/4" of wood, and perhaps adding some to the opposite side of the neck to make sure I don't weaken the neck too much. This project is on hold until I regain mobility after a foot operation I had a couple of weeks ago. Still have a month of sitting around to do before it is fully healed. But the lesson learned here was that you need a deeper "hollow" under the drum head than you would usually use on a cigar box guitar.

Another idea for next time is to use a hand drum with build in head tensioning system and synthetic head material. I had been told you want to get one with an odd number of tension fasteners as it will provide more room for the neck to drum attachment. Need to locate one at a fairly cheap price.

So, to summarize, I recommend that you try to tighten the wet drum skin as much as you can, and when it dries, it should shrink even tighter. You should also allow a lot of clearance between your drum head and the neck. You might also want to consider using synthetic material for the drum head. Sorry I can't recommend something more specific such as a formula to calculate the number of torque pounds to tighten you skin. Just expect that you might need to build two or three drums before you get one that becomes ideal for use as a banjo drum.

Well, good luck, Gary. Be sure to let us know how your drum builds turn out and what you learned.

-Rand.

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