Early 20th century Windsor

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Previously owned by the clients grandfather this banjo was being played in Palestine just after WWII. The story goes that grandfathers wife got so annoyed by his playing that she threw it onto some train tracks. It certainly had a hard life.

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The job was to get it working again and stable without having to spend a lot of money on it.

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Apart from being filthy (enough human DNA in the resonator to clone someone) it also had a loose dowel rod, severely damaged resonator, missing hooks and brackets and a split / badly fitted head skin.

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I removed the dowel rod, sorted out a previous repair, shimmed and re drilled the hole in the neck then then refitted at the correct angle. I also had to repair the hole in the pot for the dowel rod. I made new ebony wedges.

The resonator was smashed up pretty bad and was put back together with a lot of glue and nails. I cleaned it up, removed the nails and reglued it. As the customer didn't want to spend to much i decided just to patch up the mahogany veneer on the resonator then re french polish it.

I replaced the skin head with a remo for player convenience. Then cleaned up the metal work and replaced any missing hardware.

Ready for the next generation of the family to play.

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