My mind is always in the thinking mode of how things work and why something is made with some materials and not other materials I have been pondering the Idea of attempting to make a open back banjo myself, I pretty much have all the tools to make one as I was into woodworking pretty heavy at one time I have restored a home my wife and I owned in Ohio in 2009 that was built in 1889
(that was an adventure it was haunted) but any ways like I said I have been thinking about attempting to build a open back banjo myself and trying some different woods that are out of the norm.
I know from all the reading I do there are different woods that have tonal properties that to me sounds like they would be great for making a banjo one I have considered is a wood in Mexico called Ba cote its an extremely heavy wood and vary beautiful with a Janka hardness of around 2200 pounds per square inch,another is Zebra wood it has a Janka hardness of around 1560-1580/sq inch my thoughts are building a open back using the Ba-cote for the pot with a Zebra wood Neck and using a Pale Moon (Black and white) Ebony for the finger board over lay I have made some things out of all of these woods and it all came out gorgeous.
when I was looking for an open back most makers just used domestic woods they never really used a true exotic is there a reason why or do the luthier’s just take what is readily available to them I know from talking to some they had never even heard of some of the woods I would bring up and it was a pretty extensive list of woods
Give me your Thoughts please
Curious Queston
I would imagine most luthiers are trying to keep the cost of building low, and the consistency of sound high. So they’ll usually use woods that are easy to source/inexpensive, and woods that they’re familiar with, so they aren’t experimenting tonally so much.
That said, there’s a handful of luthiers that use all kinds of exotic woods, often with great success. You’ll probably find more information on banjohangout, as they have a lot of regulars who are experienced luthiers. That forum can tend to get heated, but usually if you stay in the building topics it’s fairly polite
I was watching Jens Kruger talk about banjo woods, and while a hard wood is needed for best tone, a wood that is too hard tends to be too heavy. This combination of heavy & hard actually produces a bad tone as it tends to kill the vibration in wood that is too dense.
Good luck! It sounds like a great project, experimenting with the different sounds!
@BanJoe Mr Kruger may be rite but the Ba cote I have mentioned is actually not as heavy as black walnut which has a Janka rating of 3800 Lbs/sq inch and they use black walnut all the time to make banjos my point is there are woods that are exotic that has pretty much the same properties as woods that are used frequently in building banjos I think @Dragonslayer may have a valid point one Luthier that lives fairly close to me that I have been talking to seems really quite intrigued by my thoughts and wanted to here more about the different woods that I have in mind which the three I have mentioned are three out of 100s that have similar characteristics to woods normally used in builds when I brought some of them up to him he had never heard of any of them so I think it is a combination of them not knowing and just using what is at hand and some of the woods are not cheap which plays a big part into it most likely and some are extremely hard to get like the Black and White ebony its like $40-$80 per square ft if you are able to locate some, the Bo cote is not cheap either something like $35-$45 per sq foot so its probably not cost prohibitive to use something like that but it would make for a interesting project in my opinion
Hi Don, Talking of exotic woods there are strict laws in the US about importing/using endangered woods. I seem to recall reading somewhere Gibson had issues at one time with government officials not sure if this is what lead to their demise.
This won’t be helpful to you at all, but where do you live in Ohio?
The only thing that comes to mind as a blocker is that I have heard of unexpected stability issues with non-standard neck woods on guitar necks. By “stability issues” it is not strength so much, but rather some woods react more to temperature and humidity variations leading to tuning instability.
I would add that the density of the wood can effect the tonal quality of the sound. I am sure I read somewhere that an English built banjo made of seasoned English oak didn’t resonate too well.
I have an old home made banjo built from black walnut & it still sounds pretty good.
And it sounds to me like you are on the right track!
Walnut resonates well. My Stelling Master Flower is made of walnut
@scott_wilson No my wife and I now reside in Arizona we lived in Ohio 09-2013
@Archie the woods I have mentioned and some others that I have not mentioned are not protected as what I have been able to find they are all sold in some lumber yards in the US you just have to search for them some are extremely hard to find but not protected in any way shape or form I have used quite a few to build some things with great success I had even considered trying a wood that is readily available here in Arizona called Alligator juniper to build a banjo which is a beautiful wood I have built a few tables using it with no issues at all it is a vary stable wood but when I asked a Luthier if he would be willing to build me an instrument with some of it they declined and I was going to be supplying the wood for it when my wife and I was living off grid we would go cut fire wood and the Alligator Juniper is what we would get to burn it burns a lot like Oak I would carry a tire billy and tap on the trees to make sure they were dead before cutting with a chainsaw when I would find the dead ones, when i would find the dead ones those would always have a nice ring to them when you hit them with a hickory tire billy and I would always think sometimes out loud how good they would sound made into an instrument of some sort.
@Mike_R As far as stability that could be true but, I do know that a lot of the woods including the ones I have mentioned have been used by some over seas builders with great success to build Banjos,guitars,Mandolins, and some other instruments, the builders here in the US you just never hear about any using any of the more exotics all of the builders here in the US use the old standards like Oak,Maple,Black Walnut,Cherry and a few others which I am unable to think of at the moment
That’s good to know, Don. If folks are using them with great success, then no worries. I mentioned neck wood specifically as that is where I have heard of problems. One of the steel string guitars I have (a CS21-11) has a Spanish Cedar neck. Spanish Cedar has been used alot with nylon string guitars (which are lower tension) with no issue. However, more than a few of these necks on the CS21-11 needed some attention (typically compression fretting). My personal takeaway: If I were spending a bunch of time on building something, I might go crazy on the tone woods. But for the neck, my goal would be stability and I wouldn’t be inclined to get too experimental.
@Mike_R thank you for the heads up, if I do take on this project just to see, your point is valuable information, and is worth doing some investigation