The other day I posted photos of two oil cans that are on their way through the post from eBay-land to 27th Street. My plan, as I mentioned, is to stretch my modest abilities a little by making my own fretless neck for two new oil can banjos. I’ve spent some time the past few evenings thinking about my approach, including how I need to set up to do this work.

I made the first oil can banjo in the chaos that is my painting studio and I managed because there wasn’t any woodworking involved. If I’m to shape a neck and make my own bridges, though, I need to set up a little shop and I need to do it on a budget. Last weekend I bought some wood for a workbench but never found the time to build it. That has to be done this weekend for sure. Meanwhile, I’ve been looking around at used band-saws. I think I’ve I’m going to mess with this work I’m going to need a band-saw capable of cutting the basic shape of the head-neck-dowel stick unit as the price of admission.

I want to try to do the work using as few tools as I can reasonably use to get the job done well. I don’t have a lot of room and I don’t want to spend very much money. And so, over the next week or so I’m going to be setting up a small specialty shop.

Then there is the matter of materials – wood for a neck (could be one piece or I could laminate up wood for it) obviously, but also wood for bridges plus I want to add on a fretboard (do you call it a fretboard if you don’t use frets?…maybe it’s a fingerboard) as a separate piece. For the nut I may use a piece of ebony or perhaps make the nut out of a piece of bone. I haven’t decided on that yet. I’m also considering whether to use similar construction at the back of the banjos as I used on the first oil can, with a kitchen fork tailpiece, or perhaps instead have a protruding tail more like most gourd banjos.

I don’t have any extensive history of woodworking although I do know how to use the basic tools. This is going to be quite a learning experience for me, but I don’t think any one of the tasks I have to achieve to make an oil can banjo with a hand-built neck are beyond my capabilities. This is going to be fun.