Mountain Banjo Gallery
 
 

Original and traditional designs based on instruments dating from the 1800s.

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Model M1 #4

Based on traditional design
Flamed maple, birdseye maple, maple, recycled ebony

It has been a few years since I made my last banjo. For this one, I wanted an all maple instrument with ebony accents. All the ebony in the binding are cut from piano keys salvaged from an old demolished piano. The maple binding pieces are salvaged from scraps left over from other projects. The tailpiece and bridge came from a broken banjo. The neck and body maple are all sustainably and responsibly harvested. This is definately a "green" machine!

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Model M1 #2

Based on traditional design
Philippine mahogany, ebony, zebrawood

For this instrument I decided to go the extra mile and carve the body with two man-in-the-moon faces. (My "Coog Moon™" trademark.) The Philippine mahogany is easy to carve but is relatively open grained, so I had to use a neutral sealer on the wood before applying the tung oil finish. The head inlay is abalone from shells I took home from a restaurant meal (farmed abalone) many years ago. The tuners are friction-style, with adjusting screws, and the fifth-string tuner is a Grover friction-style.

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Model M1 #3

Based on traditional design
Philippine mahogany, ebony, bocote, black walnut

I went more than the extra mile on this one. The top of the body is inlayed in an 8-point star with black walnut, ebony and maple strips. There are mother-of-pearl position markers, and the Coog Moon is ebony inlay. The tuners are the same type I used on #2, above.

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Model M1 #1

Based on traditional design
Black walnut, Brazilian rosewood, Philippine mahogany, ebony

After building a kit to see how this style of banjo was made, I created this one from scratch. The neck is mahogany with an ebony fingerboard and a Brazilian rosewood lamination on the head. The body is Eastern black walnut with a Brazilian rosewood veneer around the outside. I also added inlay around the edges and around the neck hole. The sound is quite loud for its size.
Donated to the Santa Cruz Cultural Council's 2003 Hearts for the Arts Auction.
Collection of Manual Zavala, Santa Cruz, California