Thank you.
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I love that sunburst/ baby powder blue relic. It’s masterful. Imma steal the idea, lol.
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talk about serious gas…
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That seafoam relic bass!!! 
Stunning!
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Some beautiful work there. Your name makes me think of my friend Benny, who lives not far from you and on one side his neighbor is the states poet laureate, and on the other side was the state’s most notorious moonshiner. Who was rather chill. Best cookouts.
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Oooh! I really love this one.
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I didn’t know it was a competition 
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Nah, just goofing. 
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The banjo’s name is “Son of Sling Blade”, it is the second banjo bass that I have built. I built the first one about ten years ago for a build off competition on another bass forum (Sling Blade), it came out pretty decent but I learned a lot and decided if I ever built another one I would change some things.
I ended up selling that one, then I was contacted by Guitar World magazine, they were interested in using it for a page they had entitled “It might get weird” (fitting). When I contacted the party that had purchased Sling Blade, they were not willing to send it back to me for photographs. That’s when I decided to build the second banjo bass. I did it 2 weeks as I was leaving to to Bonnaroo, a music festival in Tenneessee. I already had a bass neck on hand that I just needed to modify for the heel attachment. Both basses use a 16" drum head with a metal oil change pan for the rim/resonator.
On the first one I used a magnetic pickup mounted at the end of the neck under the head and passive controls. Amplified, it sounded okay at the best (acoustically it sound decent, definitely louder that an acoustic bass guitar). For the new bass, I decided to use a Fishman Presys + preamp and pickup that was mounted under the bone saddle of the bridge that I made for it. This made a huge difference in how it sounded amplified. Acoustically it sound much better, the first bass was built somewhat as a joke, the build off was “Use whatever you have lying around your garage”, the oil pan was used and dirty, the neck was an import that had opened at the scarf joint, etc…
For Son of Sling Blade I went all out, using a brand new oil pan (lol) and one of my necks, as well as upgraded electonics/hardware. It made a big difference.
I am a huge fan of resonator instruments and I have built a few reso basses, they are louder acoustically than a typical ABG due to having a more pronounced mid range, but they also are lacking in bass frequncies (acoustically). I have learned to use this to an advantage though I would prefer more bass.
The funny thing about the banjo bass with a metal body is that has a much warmer tone while still being fairly loud. I built the second banjo bass in mid 2015 and every since, I have been working on a new resonator design that incorporates both designs. I have made progress but it it not ready to show as of yet.
THe last time I was going to take it out for a show, one of the drum lug mounts broke (they were new, but cheap imports), I didn’t take into account how much tension it would take to support bass strings. I need to order higher quality mounts and replace the ones on it currently.
This is how it appeared in the Guitar World article (the inset pics are of the original build):
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I don’t but I will make one when I get it repaired. It may be awhile. Lol.
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Love the pinstripes
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So, I’ve been off on other forums and places and talking to people I know in various interests since I started on “hand made” definition hunting and I’ve discovered a few things about what other people consider is hand made.
The consensus comes down to the single concept of being constructed with hand tools.
This has been explored across knifemaking, bowyering, woodcarving, gunsmithing, blacksmithing, boatbuilding (including canoes and kayaks) and rodmaking, (bamboo flyrods).
So, people were prepared to endorse something as being hand made as long as the effort used to construct it was entirely made by the muscle power of the human body.
Nobody cared about tolerance measuring tools of any type because manual measuring tools like vernier calipers and micrometers were totally analog and easily capable of superfine measurement.
This seemed like a reasonable concept to me because we like to think of the old masters with their planes and blades, shaving and scraping until they construct works of art. And if you buy into that level of legendary craftmanship, then you have to draw the line somewhere. Powertools were easily it. The blacksmiths were the first to say that they used powered forges and power hammers for “convenience” and time spent. They all defended that their work would just take longer without them, but would be just as good being all human powered.
So after embarking on this little social experiment, I learned a few things I kinda was suspicious of. What people can do without power tools is amazing, but geeze you’ll pay for it. One of my friends makes bamboo rods after leaving the computer network industry. He has his waiting list down to three years since covid let him concentrate on his work. He can’t afford to do stuff by hand.
So if you see the factory tour of your favourite manufacturer and they’re using power sanders or even a drill press, they’re not hand made. That excludes pretty much everyone.
Even my favourite bass is advertised as hand made. It’s totally not.
I wouldn’t even bother trying to justify it.
And honestly, I wouldn’t want a totally hand made instrument.
Nobody wants a hand made fighter jet or rocket. It’s called the Industrial Revolution for a reason.
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I didn’t want either of these things until you mentioned them…
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There’s a good reason for that maybe?
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Honestly I see no reason why I would consider an instrument that was machined with a CNC and then hand finished for the final shaping and sandings to be any way inferior to one that was roughed down entirely with belt and orbital sanders by hand.
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