Stu Mason has a serious case of banjo acquisition syndrome! He is exploring new sounds and techniques and became very interested in a gourd banjo. Stu bought a gourd online that was hollowed out and dried and modified it including epoxying the inside and staining it. He then brought it to me and we put together a gourd banjo using some information he downloaded from David Menzies. It was an “organic” process and he ended up with an “organic” banjo! I was going to put Peg Hed tuners on it but opted to turn my own. We strung it up, and the tuners were very hard to use and not at all acceptable for
playing on a stage, so back to the original idea and I installed peg heds. That made a world of difference and still kept with the look he wanted. Here are some pics of the banjo build (with the shop turned pegs) and a video of Stu trying it out minutes after it was strung up and brought to a tuning of G-D-G-D