Before I begin discussing the construction of this 5-string banjo, I first need to give credit where credit is due. This project would not have been possible without the wonderful information that others have placed out on the internet for all to review. The best advice I can give to anyone wishing to build their own banjo is this: RESEARCH BEFORE BUILDING! I spent a great deal of time researching before I actually drew my own plans. With this being said, here is a disclaimer:

The author cannot be held accountable for the results you obtain by following these instructions. These plans are provided because they worked for me. Before attempting to construct a banjo from scratch, you should be very comfortable with your skill and safety level, as well as the equipment you plan to utilize. If you are not comfortable with certain equipment and processes, you should seek the assistance of someone with woodworking and metalworking skills. It would also be great to have a good banjo player available for advice.

With that being said, I would like to give credit to the following individuals who have helped with website advice:

Hidden Head Tensioning System-

My thanks to Rudy at angelfire.com for his tensioning method. My modifications are built on his ideas. You can find his construction notes HERE and his new site HERE

My thanks to Sean for providing information to correctly treat bone. That information can be found HERE

Building Banjo Bridges-

Richie Dotson has a great tutorial for building bridges available HERE

This is the number one site for banjo players (and wanna-be players like me). Great forums, links, tabs and lessons. Click HERE to go to Banjo Hangout.

I’ve never had much musical ability and understanding. I have been a technology education teacher for the past 17 years. Back in college (about 18 years ago), a fellow student was building a simple open-back, fretted, wood head banjo. I thought it was a neat project so I got a copy of the plans. A few months later, a friend mentioned that he was thinking about starting guitar and banjo lessons. This lead to us building 2 of these wood head banjos. I later built 3 more for others. Mine sat on a shelf until 1 1/2 years ago when my interest was ignited by stumbling onto some nice information and tuning software online. It began to make sense! That new interest lead to these plans being generated during the winter of 2004-05 and the end result of the banjo pictured to the left in the spring of 2005. Being a diehard builder, my goal was to fabricate everything I could. The only items purchased were the head, strings, tuners, fret wire and lots of nuts, bolts and screws!

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