Amena 5-String Banjo.

[DrNomis_44]

Hey Everyone,

It's not very often I get to do some restoration/repair work on one of these, but I was recently asked by a nice lady to do some work on an Amena 5-String Banjo so it can be made playable again, what a cool project, eh?

Here's a pic of the Banjo in it's current state:




It needs a new nut, set of tuners, new bridge, and a general clean-up as well as a set of new strings, which the lady has supplied.

Should be a cool learning experience for me as I've never worked on one before but I'm assuming it's just like working on a guitar, the Banjo is a member of the stringed-instruments family after all.

[DarkMark]

Good luck with that Doc. Those banjos are surprisingly heavy.

[corsair]

Actually, banjos are almost a percussion instrument with that skin and a resonator!! Love me some bluegrass banjo but could never get the finger rolls working properly and eventually sold mine on.
Are you re-skinning it, doc?

[DrNomis_44]

Actually, banjos are almost a percussion instrument with that skin and a resonator!! Love me some bluegrass banjo but could never get the finger rolls working properly and eventually sold mine on.
Are you re-skinning it, doc?

Nah, just installing a new nut, bridge, and a set of new tuners on it so I can put new strings on it, the rest of it looks okay enough, I might need to buy some steel wool from my local Bunnings store to give the frets a burnish, and remove some rust from some sheet metal parts though.

I'm thinking of going with a new ZerO Glide Zero-Fret nut as a replacement for the original one which is missing, the skin seems to be okay although a bit grubby so I'll give it a bit of a clean.

Since I quite like the sound of a Banjo, wouldn't mind getting one so I can learn how to play it, and yeah that's true although the Banjo does have strings on it, I guess it's a kind-of hybrid between a percussive and stringed instrument, they are cool though, I remember seeing a photo of the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia playing one while sitting on a stool in front of an American flag, Bluegrass is cool, the Banjo was also used in Dixieland Jazz music too.


The whole idea is to get it up and running so it's in a playable condition so it can be played at the Nirvana club, a small live music venue that's literally about 100m or so down the street where I live, hopefully it'll go well.



I need to have a yarn with the lady who asked me to fix it for her, since she wants to know how much it'll cost her, I've done a price breakdown how much it'll cost all up, I'll have to see what she reckons.


How's this for giggles, but it's so cool cause he does a really good job of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7cY5hwmvX0

[Rabbitz]

Do you know the difference between a four string banjo and a five string banjo?



























It takes about a minute longer to burn a five string...

[FrankenWashie]

Do you know the difference between a four string banjo and a five string banjo?



























It takes about a minute longer to burn a five string...

The three stores frequent keep them in the very back of the shop, the standard jokes from staff run as follows:

"We did have a beaded curtain, but it snagged on the tuners"
"They're way out in back, because we often have children in the store and we don't want to expose them to something like that"
"That's where XXXXX keeps his rocking chair and chewing tobacco"
"They're in the back, that way we can slip them in to their brown paper bags, out of sight, so as not to offend the public"

There...I've got that out of my system now....I'll show myself out now.

[king casey]

I left one sitting on the back seat of my car.

When I returned there was two of them.

cheers, Mark.

[DrNomis_44]

@ Rabbitz Lol....good one.


Once it's fixed I'll have to learn how to tune it up to pitch.

[dave.king1]

That it was a lady that asked you to restore it is obvious.

A gentleman wouldn't own a banjo.

[DarkMark]

Perhaps she wants it restored so she can take full satisfaction destroying it with a hammer.