This little piggy stayed home
I’ve always been leery about making one piece necks, especially on fretted banjos. I feel fine about making one piece fretless necks and love how lightweight they turn out. I like the thought of a banjo neck being made out of one piece of wood, but putting frets into that one piece of wood is another story. Without a truss rod, you get what you get and that has just been proven to me.
I have had good success with the 10L fretless models, no problems and the people who own them love them. One fretless 10L owner asked me to make him a one piece fretted 10L, because he loved the lightness and the thump of nylon strings. Being that he is my best customer (owns 4 banjos with 6 more on order, all different kinds of banjos and stuff I haven’t made yet including a banjo cello!) I agreed…. No dice, I spent two weeks on and off tinkering with it to get rid of a 4th string buzz, to no avail. My plan now is to make fretted 10L banjos with a fretted maple fingerboard and my double action truss rod. They will look like a one piece still with the fingerboard and the neck dyed a unified color. They will let me sleep easy at night knowing that adjustments can be made, nothing is worse than a buzz that won’t go away.
Here is a picture of the banjo that didn’t go to market, just before I pulled the frets out. This banjo will be a flush fret somewhere down the line.
