Jay was one of my pupils at Royal High School.  This instrument was his ‘course project’ for the Practical Craft Skills (PCS) course.  He completed it in February 2013.

The project was prior verified for use on the PCS course in 2012 but unfortunately, as thing stand, SQA will not allow it to be used for the the new Practical Woodworking course: a very odd decision and an opportunity missed.  Teenagers are passionate about their music and many would opt to build a guitar (or at least a banjo that plays like a guitar) – rather than the three projects currently available – given the opportunity.

The square rim / pot was evolved to satisfy Practical Craft Skills course requirements to incorporate housing joints in the model.

The neck of Jay’s banjo is built from laminated layers of pine, with a purple heart fingerboard.  The peg head veneers are purple heart and ash. The turned resonator spacers and the tail piece are also purple heart.  Unlike most of the banjos featured on this site, Jay’s doesn’t have a brass tone ring.  Instead, the calf skin is stretched over the pine rim / pot.

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

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cdtlog/sets/72157632117559887/