The Favilla back is off, the banjo is apart

A rather busy day today.

First, progress is being made on the basses. I cut the second wedge from walnut, using the same sled as before, with the major issue of the walnut turning in towards the blade and closing the kerf as I made the cut. We had to stop the saw, insert a wedge, and continue on from there.

I also found a lovely piece of quarter-sawn cocobolo to use for a fingerboard. Problem is, I have to resaw it really well, and I did not have a re-saw fence. Time to make a fence!!

This is the fence - really simple, adjustable, and kind of fun to make.

My first resawn board - a practice piece of cheap pseudo-mahogany. Five feet long, and the same thickness all the way through. Cool!

On to the Favilla uke. I've decided to remove the back - there is no way that thing is going to be fixable otherwise. 

Wow - that crack has opened up completely, all over again. Five minutes in the sun and CRACK!

I spent about a half hour trying to heat the thing with the heat lamp, and trying to pry ot apart from inside. It was simply not working.

After some internet consulting, I went to work in the afternoon, heating the uke a bit with the lamp, and keeping my tools hot with the glue pot. Things started really popping apart then!

And - it was really ugly. I now know that taking something like this apart is going to result in damage. There is no way around it.

And, we have the back off! It took about 45 minutes of careful work, and I really had to watch the direction of the grain as I went along - it would turn, and I would suddenly be ripping chunks of wood off the side. I guess this is just how it goes.

 Following that, I decided to take apart the tenor banjo I looked at a few months ago.

All the holes are kind of messed up.

There are also raised areas where the tuners pressured the wood out and up. Icky.

the neck joint is kind of iffy - the areas that touch the tension hoop have a LOT of worn metal on them.

And the cut of the heel joint to the rim is not really good - it's aimed a bit off-kilter.

I now notice that many parts are too loose, others are too tight, and the hooks aren't very deeply in the nuts.

I mean, I'd like to be able to see the hook in there somewhere.

Now that the head is off, I can see a very cool tone ring - it's really heavy, and heavily rusted too.

The tone ring rests on these brads. Cool!

The tension hoop is a pretty serious chunk of metal, and pretty grimy, too.

This hook should not look like this.

Gross.

Yeah, we need some cleaning.

Bring in the troops. Naptha and an old sock!

Oh yeah, looking much better.

I need to decide what to do about tuners. I have a set of geared tuners that I can use, but I don't know if it is a good idea.

Problem is, if I put in the geared tuners, I have to drill some pretty big holes in the headstock, and I don't think it is solid enough to handle it. And the tuners might look a bit out of proportion to the smallish headstock.

So, the plan is, clean up the banjo some more, really clean than rusty tone ring and seal it with shellac, and install phenolic rod to repair the tuner holes. If the rod works, great! If not, I can instead install the geared tuners.

Kind of a weird day, I guess not every day will end with a finished instrument.