I want to have a go at building a banjo...

 

Does it have to have the resonating plastic skin to give it that banjo sound or can it be substituted for another material or bypassed altogether and get the sound from tuning etc?

 

 

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Plastic skin, cat skin, racoon skin, a few layers of parcel tape, a tin can lid will all go a long way to giving you that sound.

 

http://www.romerobanjos.com/06078/0678.html   I think cigar boxes make excellent sounding banjos.

Don

Cigar Box Banjo. Nice sized thin box. put real banjo strings on it. Works and sounds great.

 

 

AFKAM

Wrap your rim in clear packing tape, not my idea, i think it was the square eel.

                                       Cheers Ron

This green banjo conversion makes a fine sit around, plunk and practice instrument.  It sounds good unplugged, but not too loud.  It was a 4 string that mostly hung on the wall since I found my fave to be 3 strings.  My grand daughter wants to try banjo and I think this will work well to get her started.  I added the green side piece, drilled a hole toward the top for the string, added a fret, put the tuner at the bottom and a small saddle.  Worked out pretty good.

Mine: 

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/marks-banjo-2?context=user

has a hardwood-plywood "head" and sounds quite banjo-y....  If you search for "homemade banjo" on Google you'll find lots of ideas.     Someone even contrived to use plastic half-gallon soda-bottle material.

I made a banjo-uke for my dad and just mounted a small 6" tamborine in the box with some brackets. Seemed to work well.

 

I just wish I knew then about building what I know now. 

I did the same as Jason with a 4 string mandolin banjo.  Small but mighty.
Have you considered using a tambourine as the pot? I hope this helps. Enjoy, Keni Lee

I got my tambourine off of shopgoodwill.com and it was dilivered last week.  I'll be looking working up a banjo ukulele in the next couple of weeks myself.

 

 

Tanbourine sound like a perfect start, thanx  ;D

 

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