Cheryl and I started restoring old banjos four or five years ago after finding a banjo-mando at a junk store up in Redstone Colorado. She was the motivating force in fixing up that one after it had rattled around in the back of my truck for a few weeks. She rescued it and started taking it apart, cleaning and polishing parts, and figuring out how it worked. We did some research on Google for info on how to replace a skin banjo head and jumped right in the middle of it. The first one was the worst one. If you’ve never put a calfskin head on a banjo you’ll understand what I mean ONLY after having got the first one under your belt. If you’re working on it with your spouse it will either strengthen your marriage or you’ll be headed for the counseling session.

We decided to focus on restoring instruments that weren’t worth much in the first place. Most of the 5-strings we’ve done where made in the 1880’s to 1930’s and probably didn’t sell for more than $10 brand new. A lot of these are of the no-name variety and it’s been fun doing the research to see if we could find out when they were made and by whom. The biggest thrill is to string one up that we’ve spent hours and hours working on and find out that it’s not only playable but has that special plunky old banjo sound and that it’s probably not had a voice for 50 years or more. Sweet.