A varied batch
Fall is in the air and Juneuary didn’t really burn off, this is the real Oregon weather that makes me shutter. Can we possibly be seeing 11 months of cloudy skies this year? I usually have pretty dark skin by September, but this year I’m as white as my Scotch/Irish wife Margaret. It seems a good year to re-read “Sometimes a Great Notion” by Ken Kesey, that book will expose your bones to the feeling of cold, gray and damp. I feel the only way to deal with perpetual gray is to celebrate the region in which I’ve been blessed to live in. I need to get out in the woods and let the rain drip down my back, or finally get a canoe and hit the river each morning before work. SUP? Kayak? Bike around town! One thing is for sure, if you try to sit around the house all fall, winter and spring waiting for sun to come around you’re bound to go batty.
There you have it the Oregon update weather wise. No tomatoes or peppers this year, the pumpkins are even hurting. A slugs dream year.
Luckily and strategically my bench is flooded with light. Currently it’s a varied batch; Two 20L five strings, one 10L five string, a 30L six string, a 20L guitjo and a 10L nylon strung guitjo. The two 10L banjos are the first 10L models to have frets and truss rods.
Pictured is the batch of necks with one coat of sealer. I use a traditional method of finishing rifle stocks to finish my necks and the first coat is to oil sand the sealer into the wood to fill the pours. That is why the wood looks dull in the picture, the oil and wood are drying awaiting a dry sanding before finish coats. The necks get two finish coats of hard oil finish after the initial sealer oil sand, then one more sealer oil sand to fill the grain a bit more, then one more finish coat after that. When that coat dries I lightly sand the finish with 1000 grit and then buff it out by hand with a cotton cloth until it offers no resistance to your hand and it is finely polished. An “Old World” finish with “New World” finish products. I used to use straight Tung oil in New Mexico where the climate would dry it in a day, but that doesn’t work in Oregon. I need dryers in the oil now.
Have I mentioned how fantastic all of the walnut I currently have is? I have a new source on top of my old source and he is the man! He is on the way to the woods!! I can get a great hike in and sort through hand picked walnut neck blanks on my way home. The wood is picked out by the lumber man with banjo necks in mind and then hidden in the “Brooks” corner of the building. Thank you Oregon…
