Banjo 09 complete

Over the last week the strings and skin of my most recent mountain banjo build have settled in nicely, so this one is now complete. It's walnut and ash throughout, with a goatskin vellum head and nylgut strings.

I can never resist having a couple of days to get to know one of my banjos before they head out into the world, so here's a short improvisation I recorded:

And here's a short tune too. I was aiming at Frazier and Patterson's Old Crow Died, but found the scratchy old recording very difficult to learn from! When my version started wandering I decided to just let it - it's a nice demonstration peice for the banjo, anyway:

Finally, a few pictures: