"I can tell you the Sherry Lynne is the most finished, compete banjo I’ve played. I appreciate the level of artistry in it Dan and your long suffering work to make it something others will find interesting to view and amazing to hear."
David Emery
Folks have often asked me about the process of creating a totally new banjo. How did it get designed? Why did y'all put that little ole' thingy there? Who is that 'un for?
Here, with some written explanation and a whole lot of photos, is an attempt to answer just a few of these questions.
For those who have followed this essay (and those who have not) this instrument is now complete and delivered. Like all of my instruments it is named. David asked me to name her Sherry Lynn after his wife.
CLICK ON THE LINKS FOR DETAILED PHOTOS.
This instrument was created in collaboration with my friend and client David Emery, a fine banjo player who lives in the great state of Alabama.
The first new idea was to create a reproduction of one of the early Grand Ole' Opry star Uncle Dave Macon's' Gibson banjoes. It was to be replete with all the wear such an instrument would have. Two of his Gibson's were found and their owners graciously were going to allow me to photograph and measure their treasures. Before this could take place new ideas began to emerge.
The fist idea to show up was to create a new-found banjo from the 1880's replete with all the dings and attendant wear of a well used instrument of that era. Numerous peghead designs were made each changing and refining our direction. David settled on a Cubley peghead (which I have in my personal collection). This banjo is from the 1880's and fit the idea of a new found design.
The next idea was to make it a presentation grade instrument, but still well used. Then from my buddy Matt Kinman (the Little Hobo) who was working in my shop at the time, came the idea of making the neck from ebony. Matt said that often times banjo makers like Schall, Fairbanks and others made their highest grade instrument necks of ebony. David liked the idea and so we were off and running. It was decided to make the neck of ebony with its centerspline, binding and other contrasting accoutrements of figured maple. It was decided to finish the instrument in spirit varnish and not to distress or age the finish.
A day or two following the decision to make the neck of ebony, Matt and I made a trip to Memphis, Tennessee where we visited Colco, a fine hardwoods store. Colco is a wonderful place for a wood worker to dream. They stock a huge supply of quality hardwoods from around the world. This is the store where we usually buy our ebony, rosewood and cocobolo. After returning from Memphis the neck blanks were sawed, glued and put away for nearly 1 year of curing.
During the curing phase further designs were developed including hardware and wood inlay. The wood peghead and frailing scoop inlay were designed using the Cubley as a go by. At this time we decided to design and hand make the bracket shoes, tonering and tailpiece.
David expressed a desire to have curly maple for his rim.
After many false starts and dead ends we decided that to get the quality and
figure that this project deserved, we would have to manufacture this rim. Most
rims are bent and glued up as blanks by companies like Cooperman Fife and Drum,
then turned on a lathe by the banjo builder. Because of its undulating grain,
curly maple is not a desirable wood, according to the rim builders, because it
is prone to break, crack and do other weird things when bent to the small radius of a banjo rim. Our
choice (it seemed) was to laminate a thin veneer of curly maple on the bent rim's
inner and outer sides. Tonally this was not desirable. Our other choice was to
build and turn the rim from blocks of curly maple. This is what we chose to do.
A figured maple rim was glued up from blocks and turned on our lathe (click on the rim icon to see and read details). This turned out to be a very beautiful and pleasing rim but when the rim was stained to match the ebony neck. The idea being to maintain the figure but have it fit visually with the ebony. I was not pleased in the least with the result. It seamed a complete a sin to blacken such beautiful grain with the stain and the result proved it to be so. After much thought and consultation we settled on creating a ebony rim. At this point we also decided to use a Bill Richard White Laydie tonering. Bills' tonerings are some of the finest I have found, beautifully made and detailed. This I believe tended to add a bit of edge to what would have been an overly thick sound. In the end we used a commercially produced tension hoop and brackets, choosing to concentrate on making bracket shoes and the tailpiece.
Knowles String Instruments
107 East Ruff Street
Paris, TN 38242 731-644-1157
dan@danknowles.net