Tag Archives: pupil banjo

Scott Nicoll, Daniel Gough and Robbie Ferguson with their completed banjos.

Easter 2015 Workshop at Forfar Academy

The first Banjoworks workshop ran during the school Easter holidays, over nine days.

  • Three S1 pupils (twelve years of age) and one former pupil attended.
  • Two of the pupils, Daniel Gough and Robbie Ferguson, built their banjos, start to finish in the nine days.
  • One pupil, Scott Nicoll could only attend during the five days of the second week.  He was provided with a partially formed neck, which allowed him to complete the remainder of the instrument within the time he had available.
  • The former pupil, Blair Robertson, attended during the first week.  Unfortunately, his employer altered his work schedule for the second week and he was therefore unable to attend to complete his banjo.  The partly completed components have been stored, in case he has the opportunity to attend a future workshop, to complete his banjo.
  • Faculty leader Bob Baldie was available throughout, and helped Robbie and Daniel prepare CAD drawings to laser cut their peg head inlays.

Links to Photos



Daniel Gough's Banjo

Daniel Gough’s Banjo

Daniel completed his banjo over nine days during the school Easter holidays, 2015.

  • Daniel made a great job of the instrument.  It plays well and feels good to hold.
  • The neck is built from layers of hardwood, including poplar and meranti.
  • The peg head has a meranti veneer with a poplar inlay.  He laser cut a skull motif inlay for it.
  • The rim /pot was brick-built from various hardwoods and turned on the wood lathe.
  • Daniel chose to stain the calf skin with coffee, to achieve a deep brown colour.

Scott Nicoll's Banjo

Scott Nicoll’s Banjo

Scott completed his banjo over five days during the school Easter holidays, 2015.

  • Scott was unable to attend the first week of the workshop.  To ensure that he’d be able to complete an instrument, he was provided with a partly formed neck.
  • Scott made a great job of the instrument.  It plays well and feels good to hold.
  • The neck is built from layers of pine, with a walnut finger board.
  • The rim /pot was brick-built from various hardwoods and turned on the wood lathe.
  • Scott chose to stain the calf skin with coffee, to achieve a deep brown colour.

Robbie Ferguson's Banjo

Robbie Ferguson’s Banjo

Robbie completed his banjo over nine days during the school Easter holidays, 2015.

  • Robbie made a great job of the instrument.  It plays well and feels good to hold.
  • The neck is built from layers of hardwood; oak and various tropical species.
  • He chose to fit a slotted peg head with a poplar veneer.  He laser cut a stag head inlay for it.
  • The rim /pot was brick-built from various hardwoods and turned on the wood lathe.
  • Robbie chose to stain the calf skin with coffee, to achieve a deep brown colour.

Instrument Stand Components Being Laser Cut

Laser Cutting an Instrument Stand

Yesterday I used the opens source programme ‘Inkscape’ to produce a CAD drawing of the instrument stand, and took the file to Forfar Academy.  The file was converted for use with one of the department’s laser cutters.  The stand’s components were then cut from a sheet of 4mm birch plywood.

This production method will be so much faster than cutting the plywood at the band saw, during the Easter holiday banjo construction workshop.

Activities Week at Royal High School

Royal High School ‘Activities Week’, May 2012

This project is the blueprint for what I hope will be achieved with BanjoWorks.

In May 2012, the normal teaching timetable at The Royal High School, where I then taught, was suspended and pupils were given the opportunity to try other activities. I offered eleven S2 and S3 pupils the chance to build a banjo in five days.  Nine out of the eleven completed their instruments by the end of the week.  The two who didn’t were each absent due to illness for at least one day during the week but completed their banjos afterwards.

To ensure that pupils would succeed in completing their banjos within the week required a fair amount of preparation and a small amount of pre-building by the teacher.  A more realistic, leisurely time frame, with pupils carrying out almost all work themselves, is probably seven to eight days.

Some workshop photos were taken during the week and are available at Royal High CDT’s Flickr account:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cdtlog/sets/72157630027181072/

Sixth year pupil Stuart Clark visited the workshop on the Friday and made the following video recording:

The week after the event, some of the pupils assembled to have group photos taken.  Here is a video recording made then:

Here are two group photos:

Banjo week participants, June 2012

Banjo week participants, June 2012

Banjo week participants, June 2012

Banjo week participants, June 2012

Photos and video recordings of pupils’ banjos are available as follows:

Robert Ody

Iain Lowther

Stefan McGee

Felix Allan

Michael Hackett

Juliette Goddard

Marcus Watt

 

Kenny Holburn's Banjo

Kenny Holburn’s Banjo

Kenny was one of my pupils at Royal High. He built this banjo as the final project for the Standard Grade Craft & Design course, working on it from September 2012 until March 2013. I marked out and cut the neck at the band saw, but Kenny did almost all the rest.  It was one of the best banjos built in the department.

The rim (pot) was turned on the wood lathe from twenty-four hardwood segments. The neck was laminated pine with a purple heart hardwood finger board and peg head veneer. Calf skin was stretched over a brass tone ring (rolled and soldered in-house) and fixed to the rim with furniture tacks. Guitar fret wire has been used instead of banjo wire, as it’s easier to press in place. The neck was fixed to the rim using cast aluminium brackets (cast in-house) and hardwood wedges. Nylgut (nylon) strings were  fitted.

High resolution photos of the banjo are available at Royal High CDT’s Flickr account.   Each photo is captioned with construction information.

Work in progress photos of a similar banjo being built are available here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cdtlog/sets/72157628065703373/

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Gaven Smith's Banjo

Gaven Smith’s Banjo

Gaven was one of my pupils at Royal High.  He built this banjo as the final project for the Standard Grade Craft & Design course, working on it from September 2012 until March 2013. I marked out and cut the neck at the band saw and levelled the frets, but Gaven did almost all the rest.  It was one of the best banjos built in the department up to that date.

The rim (pot) was turned on the wood lathe from twenty-four hardwood segments. The neck was laminated pine with a hardwood finger board. and peg head veneer. Goat skin was stretched over a brass tone ring (rolled and soldered in-house) and fixed to the rim with furniture tacks. Guitar fret wire has been used instead of banjo wire, as it’s easier to press in place. The neck was fixed to the rim using cast aluminium brackets (cast in-house) and hardwood wedges. Steel strings were  fitted.

High resolution photos of the banjo are available at Royal High CDT’s Flickr account.   Each photo is captioned with construction information.

mikey_prince_banjo_9191b

Mikey Prince’s Banjo

Mikey was one of my pupils at Royal High.  The banjo was his final project on the Standard Grade Craft & Design course.  He completed it in March 2013.

The neck of the banjo was built up from layers of pine, with a purple heart finger board.  The peg head featured contrasting hardwood veneers.

The rim was built up from twenty-four segments of various species of timber and turned on the wood lathe.  Mikey rolled a brass tone ring, soldered its ends and fitted it to the rim.  He stretched calf skin over it and fixed the skin in place with furniture tacks: a tack head arrangement.

The rim is held to the neck with aluminium brackets, cast at school.

Inexpensive worm gear guitar tuners were fitted.

High resolution photos of the banjo are available at Royal High CDT department’s Flickr account:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdtlog/sets/72157633431237720/

Steven Grieve's Banjo

Steven Grieve’s Banjo

Steven was one of my pupils at Royal High.  He built this banjo from September 2011 to April 2012.  It was his final model on SQA’s Standard Grade Craft and Design course.  Steven was in year S4.

I marked out and rough cut the neck and instrument stand at the band saw, but Steven did almost all the rest.

The rim (pot) was turned on the wood lathe from thirty-two hardwood segments – ash and walnut. The neck was formed entirely from purple heart.

Calf skin was soaked in coffee, to accentuate its natural colour variations, then stretched over a brass tone ring and fixed to the rim with furniture tacks. The brass tone ring was formed in school from 6mm round bar, bent using a ring roller. Its ends were soldered together at the brazing hearth.

Steven Grieve's Banjo

Steven Grieve’s Banjo

Guitar fret wire has been used instead of banjo wire, as it’s easier to press in place than banjo fret wire. The neck was fixed to the rim using cast aluminium brackets (cast in-house) and hardwood wedges. Steel strings were fitted.

The instrument stand is made from 4mm birch plywood.  Its components are a friction fit, and easily dismantle for transportation in an instrument bag. Bicycle rubber inner tube has been glued to the plywood, to prevent the banjo being marked by the stand.

High Resolution photos of the finished banjo, along with construction images, are available at Royal HIgh CDT’s Flickr account:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cdtlog/sets/72157629713585845/

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