Once got to see a realworld "Brake Drum Banjo" in use by the old guy who had built it in his youth. While he was not exactly a stellar player, his musical endeavors being strictly parttime for the old coal miner, his banjo struck me as being particularly sonorous and loud for its diameter.

The really neat thing about that instrument was in the close examination of its overall construction, everything on it but the tuning machines was uniquely home-brew, including the fretwires.

I've talked before about my paternal grandfather's self-built fiddle, also had a great uncle who had built his own small 8-string "guitar" in which there were doubles of each of 4 strings, like as done with a modern 12-string. Again, the only thing on that little ukelele sized guitar (mandolin? don't know, was too young at the time to know about such and the other men called it, his "guitar" as did he...) but only the tuners appeared to be "store-boughten" on it, that much I recall, as the tuners were metal with some sort of "plastic" buttons on them, yellowed and mellowed over the years with the tiny crazing cracks that most plastics of the era would suffer. The mechanism was nickel plated steel with bronze gears turned by the common steel screw gears.

Wish I had either in my possession today, the city fellers at the Antique Road Show would likely come unglued while assessing the value of the "folk art" instrument, eh?


--Mac

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