Bigger silverspun rims
This week I finished my first 12” silverspun rim. The dilemma in the past was lack of a supplier for the longer nickel needed to make bigger than a 11.5” silverspun rim. The only reason I was offering 11.5” rims was because that was the biggest rim I could make with 36” of nickel. Now the gates are open, I can get 6 foot sheets of nickel!
Pretty much the biggest reason I started making banjos in the first place, was to produce silverspuns. I sold a really nice old S.S. Stewart I owned one day, out of desperation, and regretted it minutes after. I would spend hours when I was getting started making banjos, drooling over all the S.S. Stewarts in the Tsumara banjo book my mentor Stephen Owsley Smith owned. Steve told me not to worry, one day I would make my own banjos that nice. I had too much respect for the man to let him down and laid awake at night until I had a plan. I used my foot as a stop, hunched over on the front porch of my cabin, to make my first silverspun rim. Now, 11 years later, I need to finish the rim I owe him, I finally feel up to snuff and he can have the 12” rim he requested. If you have ever seen an instrument made by Steve, you will know what I’m talking about when I say respect. He is the best maker of instruments in the guitar and mandolin family there is, hands down. He made them out of a school bus at 7,000 feet for 30 years in Taos, New Mexico. He likes life away from the public eye and has a lengthy wait list, so most folks will never hear of him. He lives is Hawaii now and has a thatched shop, Aloha Steve! He was the one who told me to quit my job and make banjos full time…so I quit my job (working for a high end stair builder, 4 1/2 hours from home in Denver), went out and spent $400 on a school bus to set up my shop by golly. When folks like that tell me what to do I listen.
Now that I have found a supplier of long sheets of nickel, I have my machinist working on some risers for my lathe and bigger mounting plates. I’m building a huge new work bench for assembly and I have a huge batch of 12 banjos going at the moment. It feels like a whole new operation around here. In the coming months look for a 14” slothead gut strung silverspun, a 16” slothead silverspun cello banjo, a 16” silverspun mando cello banjo, a 9” silverspun mandola banjo and an 11” silverspun octave mando banjo. It feels like the love boat around here, exciting and new!! Thanks to everybody who has kept this ball rolling with 11 years of solid orders!
