The Banjo Is Done !!

Well .... It's done and it sounds GREAT ! For a first shot at building a banjo from scratch, I'm completely happy with the way it came out ... It took considerable patience on WIll's part to get the neck on right, and we learned a lot, about building a banjo and about working together on a project where we both had a little knowledge, but neither of us had the whole picture. We both stuck up for what we thought was right, which made the process decidedly more interesting. It's a good thing one of us (and it wasn't me) knew a lot about how a banjo should play, how it should be set up and what little things you can do to fine tune the finished product. Will has a couple more tweaks that he wants to do to it, but I think he's pretty happy with it too .... Hopefully, we'll add some sound to this entry soon .... Click the pictures to enlarge them .....

First notes, yesterday afternoon ...

The pot

The fretboard

Side view

Head on ...
Other Posts about making this banjo
First post/start up Making the rings and turning the pot
Second Post Progress Fitting the neck to the pot
Third Post Shaping the neck and adding the fretboard

The Danby Bluegrass and Old Time Music Festival

Yesterday was a beautiful summer day, actually one of the first hot sun, blue sky, put your shorts on, summer days of the season and I took advantage of it to go to the Danby Bluegrass Festival with some friends. Will and his Goldtown group, were playing with some other friends as The Johnny Davis Band so it was an easy decision to hop in the car and go. Compared to the other acts, they were definitely the youngest, but they ripped through a number of bluegrass standards and some of their own stuff and were well received by the crowd. I know they had a good time too ... The site was picture perfect, the other performers were real fine and it was just a great afternoon .... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...

I got there in time to see Smokey Greene sing that 70's classic, "Drop Kick Me Jesus Through The Goal Posts of Life" ... I last saw him do that locally in the 70's before we both quit the bar scene. I missed a great photo op of a small group of line dancers doing the dkmjttgpol line dance ... quite the sight. Smokey closed his set with about 20 people on stage helping him sing some classic standard, though I can't remember which one it was.

Next up was Will and his friends doing their stuff...

Will, getting down some good banjo licks ...

Acoustic Blue ... Classic standards and gospel, with Smokey helping them out..

the crowd

The last set I caught was by Junior Barber and his friends from Platsburgh, New York.
Junior as a dobro player is right up there with Jerry Douglas imho, and it was great to see them perform. I'm sure the group after them was great but we had the 'Lilly ' party to go to, where there was an acre of blooming daylillies, an acre of friends, a 1/2 acrre of pot luck food, and about a half hour of professional quality fireworks. It's an annual event for at least the last ten years and never fails to be great. Had I checked my email before bed I would have found an order for one of our fanciest pool tables. Today I feel like I went through the 'goal posts' for the winning point.