Buzzard Mountain Blog

Well I have finished up the S6 Prototype and I thought I would share some pictures before I ship it off to Pat & Patrick. This 6 String banjo has a wonderful voice! The Cocobolo Rosewood tone ring on a Mahogany rim with the Fiberskyn head gives it a wonderfully balanced tone. The Rim, Neck and Rim Cap are all Mahogany and the rim features a Herringbone inlay!

S6 Front


S6 Side View


S6 Back


S6 Pot Close up


I can't wait for Pat & Patrick to get this in there hands!

I am currently working on a custom banjo for a client that I designed around his budget, my goal was to create a great banjo that will last for years and years, sound great and be affordable to us working class folks. I am planning on making this type of banjo a standard offering at Buzzard Mountain. It should retail for about $800 and be about the best banjo available in that price range. It will have the following features:
- 2 Ply Hard Maple Rim
- Bubinga Wood Tone Ring
- Bubinga Rim Overlay
- Standard square headstock profile with Rosewood overlay (The custom I am currently working on has a upgraded headstock profile)
- Rosewood finger board
- White Side dots
- Grooved Tension hoop with 14 brackets & shoes
- Fyberskin, Amber or Frosted head.
- Dobson style heel
- Bone nut & 5th Pip
- Planetary tuners with ebony knobs

Here are a couple of photos of the custom version I am working on now:

Here is the rim, it has been turned and the holes are drilled and it just needs to be sanded and finished.


Here is the neck blank in my jig getting the finger board glued on.


This banjo is turning out great! I will keep some progress photos going here. If your interested in one of these please contact me at the link above. I am still trying to think up a good name for the standard model, not sure yet but I am leaning towards the Buzzard Mountain "Road Kill" Banjo.

I am also working on the S6 Guitar banjo prototype, here is a sneak peek at what its shaping up to be.

I have finished re-doing Patrick's S1 Prototype to his specifications. Some of you should remember that during shipping it got damaged.


So with the damage we took this opportunity to rework the banjo. Patrick wanted it to have the S2 headstock design instead of the traditional Vega headstock, and it is stained maple vs. walnut. This build has turned out great! I also had the opportunity to take this banjo to my Tuesday Night Jam and play it for a bit, and it sounds great and has no problem at all cutting through the noise of the bluegrass banjos in attendance.

Here are a few images to torture Patrick some, because he still wont have it in is hands until next week at the Folk Musicians Retreat.

Well folks the S3-002 is done and on its way to Pat & Patrick for their inspection and final setup. I thought I would post a few glamor shots for everyone to see. This one turned out great and plays like a dream! I hope that it finds its way safely to its new owner!

I finished up the Somerset S7 Banjo Ukulele prototype today and I must say, this little thing is fun! I am going to live with it for a few days to test it out, I know it will torture Patrick but here are a few photos for your viewing pleasure.







In other news here are a few construction photos of the BM09002 custom banjo.

Here is an image after the cocobolo strip and curly maple cap have been glued up.


This is the tone ring getting ready to be glued to the rim.


One can never have enough clamps!


And here is the rim after being turned and rough sanded.




Until Next time.

Well now that my Internet connection is back again I can post some updates on the things I've been working on this last week.

I've been finishing up the Prototype for the S7 Somerset Banjo Ukulele and I think this thing is turning out great! I have finished the Rim and the neck is nearly complete, it just needs a few more coats of finish on it, I can hardly wait to get it together and hear what this beauty is going to sound like!

Here are some images of the S7:
First up is some pics of the S7 Rim in my Jig for drilling the holes. This jig is attached to my drill press and helps insure that all the holes are perpendicular and in line.





Here is a shot of the finished rim before the hardware had been installed:



This is the neck and rim together, the neck just needs a few more coats of finish and the rim is done!




Next, I've been finishing up the S3-002 for a lucky customer. The rim is ready to go and the neck just needs a few more coats of finish as well.









Well thats it for now, it was busy week and this week is turning out to be just as busy! Thanks to all of you out there who are supporting the Somerset Team and me!

It's been a beautiful weekend here in the sunny south, the temperature has been around 80F with a nice cool breeze blowing and the sun a shinnin'. I have spend\t most of the last few days turning rims for the various Somerset Banjos. I thought I would share a few more photos of this work.

This is a rough S1 rim blank attached to my lathe.


This view is after it has been turned to the rough outside diameter and the tone ring has been fitted.


The last view is after I flip the rim over and cut it to length and radius off the bottom.


Here is a view of all the rims I've been working on these last few days: 2 S1 Walnut rims, 1 S3 rim with Cocobolo Tone Ring and the S7 Prototype rim.


All of these rims are ready for the holes to be drilled, which is what I will be working on come Monday morning.

Lastly, I thought some of you might be interested in seeing the Buzzard Mountain Mascot. Now, I know most of you probably assume that it is a trained Buzzard, but all of my efforts to catch and tame one have failed. So instead I have a Samson!



You can find more pics of Samson at my old Flickr Stream.

Things have been crazy busy around Buzzard Mountain HQ these last couple of weeks, so I thought it was time to post an update on a few of the projects I am currently working through.

First up is a sneak peek at the Somerset S7 Ukulele Prototype.

This is a shot of my Lathe set-up I use for turning the rims, in this case it's the rim for the S7. My set up is based in part on the lathes shown at Hickler Banjo.







Here is the nearly finished S7 neck blank.





I have also been working on a Somerset S3 Banjo as well. Here is the nearly finished neck.



In addition to all of that, I've been working on the BM09002 custom banjo. Here is the curly maple neck with Cocobolo stripe and custom headstock design.







And lastly I've finally have the fretboard and flush frets installed on "The Snooks" gourd banjo. The flush frets are inlaid Mahogany to match the neck wood.





Thats it for now folks, look for more info on all of these projects in the days and weeks to come.

I'm still toying around with making some videos, this one is a time lapse video of the hand carving process on the Somerset necks once they have been put through the Copy Carver. This step takes me about an hour to complete, but the video is compressed to about 5 mins. Using a series of wood rasps and files I can grind down the ridges left by the Copy carver and finalize the shape, this hand work allows me the ability to make adjustments where necessary for each individual piece of wood. It would be possible to get the neck to this point on the Copy Carver using a series of smaller router bits and burrs but I prefer to do this by hand.


Background music "Dreadful Wind and Rain" Jerry Garcia & David Grisman from their Shady Grove album.






On my custom banjos I generally skip the Copy Carver step and just carve the neck by hand. I do this mainly because I enjoy it and it does give me a bit more control over the finished product since I am generally only making one at a time, whereas on the Somersets I am typically doing several necks at once.

I had to make a trip to my lumber yard today to get some more supplies. I was going to take my camera with me and get some shots of the yard, but I forgot to grab it on my way out. Next time, I'll remember.

I picked up a 16/4 x 9" x 8' hard maple for the somerset necks. This thing is huge!


The big purple truck belongs to my dad, I call it the Magenta Beast.

The log on top of the hard maple is a really nice piece of curly maple I picked up for making some of my own custom banjos. I have a couple of orders in and those people are lucky I found such a nice piece!



I always try to find the best wood possible, and I do have minimum standards on which pieces I will use but this piece in particular is really flamed and figured!

It's always an adventure going to this place, if you get there at the wrong time and they are busy, you have to wait quite awhile to get what you need. Today was one of those days and I got there just at the wrong time and ended up having to wait for 45 mins or so. The guys that work there are really good about trying to help a fella out and are always apologetic when it takes so long, so I can't complain too much. While waiting this time I got into a really interesting conversation with a guy who builds boxes and humidors. Ed Sallee was his name and you can see some of his work at his site www.waxingmoonwood.com. It's always nice to talk to someone else who is passionate about the beauty of wood!