Skateboard Banjo

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Revision as of 12:43, 2 July 2013 by Msemtd (talk | contribs)
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Project Plan

Use old skateboard decks to make the neck (and other parts) of a tenor banjo. A skateboard deck has a natural bend at the kicktail for the headstock making the underside of the deck a slightly convex fretboard due to the deck's concave. Skate decks are typically 7-ply Canadian Maple and are very stiff. I will be laminating two decks together for extra depth and stiffness.

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo
  • Hmmm, 5-string or Tenor? I'd love a 5-string so I'll try to make that work
  • compare with commercially available, e.g. Ozark: 2102G 5-String Open Backed Banjo (Scale length - 697mm = 27.45")
  • NB: I have no idea what I'm doing!
  • neck: this is the skate deck part - I have two identical old decks (same pressing, same concave) which I've glued together with Gorilla Glue (see pics)
  • body/pot: I'm going to use a wooden hand drum with tensioners which will give me a basic body for little cost and little work. In the future I want to glue up and turn my own rims on the lathe.
  • bridge: current thinking - just a piece of skate deck
  • nut: current thinking - just a piece of skate deck
  • tuning hardware: ebay cheapest set of 6 guitar tuners 3x left 3x right
  • strings: whatever becomes available
  • tensioning bars: I'll see how the hand drum and neck come together


Geometry, plans and other info: -

Banjo # frets scale
Gibson 26-1/4" 22 26.250"
Long-neck 32-1/4" 25 32.250"
Tenor 22-1/4" 19 22.250"
Vega 27" 22 27.000"


fret from nut fret to fret
1 1.249" 1.249" (nut-1)
2 2.428" 1.179" (1-2)
3 3.540" 1.112" (2-3)
4 4.590" 1.050" (3-4)
5 5.581" 0.991" (4-5)
6 6.517" 0.936" (5-6)
7 7.400" 0.883" (6-7)
8 8.233" 0.833" (7-8)
9 9.020" 0.787" (8-9)
10 9.763" 0.743" (9-10)
11 10.463" 0.700" (10-11)
12 11.125" 0.662" (11-12)
13 11.749" 0.624" (12-13)
14 12.339" 0.590" (13-14)
15 12.895" 0.556" (14-15)
16 13.420" 0.525" (15-16)
17 13.916" 0.496" (16-17)
18 14.383" 0.467" (17-18)
19 14.825" 0.442" (18-19)

Here we have some progress photos of the deck lamination and slice-up. Note: "you can never have too-many clamps". Using bamboo chopsticks as dowels to align the bolt-holes, fill them in, and perhaps add a little strength.

The skate deck glue-up has been sliced down to about 95mm wide. The nose and tail beyond the bolt-holes are about 135mm and 125mm long. The truck bolt mountings are 59mm long each and there is 350mm between the innermost bolt-holes. The bolt-holes are 35mm between (46.5mm including holes).

The nut is to be located immediately before the kicktail starts to drop away. A centre line is scribed that also defines the location of the third string. The scale length will be decided when the hand drum is obtained and the neck-body join is decided.