Portfolio Banjos 

Specifications 

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Tenor banjo for irish traditional style music

What about a short scale tenor to be tuned in the irish traditional tuning, with an internal resonator and a flathead tonering, a fyberskin head, some gorgeous exotic woods, inlays evocating the Scottish highlands and Irish traditional music and finallly an elaborate heelcarving with a thistle motive.
This banjo was designed to be used  in a band which main focus is contempory celtic music.

My friend Bart was so pleased with his banjo he immediately ordered another one in the same style, with more Celtic inspired inlays.
In the end Bart gave me a beautiful thistle plant to grow in my garden. When I moved to my new workshop this plant was the first to be replanted with great care. Now it is blooming every year and reminds me of a close friendship with a gifted musician.

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Tenor banjo  for traditional jazz

This tenor banjo has a modern scale and was designed to be used in a New Orleans-style orchestra. The curly maple wood has a natural finish, delicately highlighted with an amber stain, pronouncing the curly wood-pattern  to higher level.All inlays were based on an old-style design

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Old-time five string banjo

A friend of mine ordered a simple tasteful banjo with the flavour of the golden age of the banjos, nicely curly maple, engraved inlays and, of course, a traditional heelcarving.
The maple for the neckwood was choosen in this sence that the curls constantly move, disappearing and showing themselves when moving the neck, giving it a very lifely presentation;
The ebony peghead overlay was inlayed with red abalone, showing a traditional flowerpot-design. On the fingerboard the pearl positionmarkers are small diamonds engraved with an inside leaf design and the traditional star. The heelcap shows a little dragon, engraved in red mother of pearl.
The ebony heelcap of the rim was trimmed with an ivoroid binding both on the inside and the outside edge. On the dowelstick the name of the customer was engraved, together with his personal quote: ' like flowers and diamonds, so are musicians and banjos'.

The whyte laydie tonering gives this banjo a surprisingly rich old-timey sound both for clawhammer and up-picking.
My friend gets all the credit for the tasteful looks of this banjo. He has a wonderful feeling for designing and decorating a beautiful instrument and a keen eye for detail and traditional craftmanship. I have learned a lot from him and I wish to thank him for challenging me into making this banjo and making me a better luthier in the process.

Besides that René is a highly talented luthier with a never ending patience, making him the man to restore vintage broken  instruments. His main interest goes to flamenco guitars and restoring old dinky toy cars. And now he is picking up the diatonic accordeon, his wife confessed. René: a never ending stream of interests.

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Old-time openback banjo

The heart of this open back banjo is a powerfull sounding tubaphone tonering. Highly figured curly maple was used both for the neck and rim and for the rim-heelcap.

The only decoration the customer chose, was the small bird on the peghead, a drawing found in Japanese heraldic symbols.
This wonderful instrument is a shining beauty in its simplicity and elegance, a precious friend for a great banjoplayer.

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Old-time five-string banjo with a 'dragon' peghead

This banjo combines highly figured american walnut with a tubaphone tonering and with the shoe-bearing band, giving it a sweet  singing chrystal clear voice with a warm deep bass drone.
The fingerboard and peghead are trimmed with ivoroid binding.
The engraved dragon on the peghead, an old style inlay pattern found on many great banjos from the turn of the century and the tree of life climbing all over the fretboard was made of carefully selected red abalone.

This banjo was ordered by my friend Manu, a wonderful and talented clawhammer banjo player. His interest in celtic and new england music makes him a passionate musician who is an example for the whole Belgian banjo community. 
In his spare time Manu is trying to raise some endangered wateranimal species and relocating them in their natural habitat. His knowledge of nature is amazing. Needless to say he is an old friend that I hold very dear.

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Whyte laydie banjo with no. 9 Vega-style inlay
and heelcarving

"And what about a maple banjo, with a whyte laydie tonering?", Manu wondered one day.
"And with an internal resonator and some delicate Vega no. 9-style inlays!", I replied.
"And of course, a gorgeous heelcarving and a peghead backstrapping inlayed with a traditional gryphon design."
Again, we started designing and planning this high-end instrument, which is a fantastic sounding instrument in the hands of its skilled owner.

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These two banjopegheads, although different in design, carry the same traditional flowerpot inlay, found on many beauties from the turn of the century.
The banjo on the left has a black-white-black purfling continuously running under the fingerboard and peghead. The banjo on the right has a more elaborate purfling under the fingerboard.

These two banjos differ in many ways.
One has a whyte laydie tonering and delicate engraved positionmarkers on the fingerboard.
The banjo on the right has a tubaphone tonering combined with a shoe-bearing band. The flower-style inlays give this banjo a more elaborate look than his friend on the left.

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Bluegrass banjo, toptension model

Steve Louvat is a unbelieveably talented banjoplayer. I met him as a young boy, eager to learn and study his instrument all day long. Like his tutor and friend, Bill Keith said:"I wished I had his technique at his age.
Being lefthanded Steve had trouble to find the banjo of his dreams. So his quest for a professional banjo brought him to my workshop. Devoted to all his banjo heroes he was very specific about the design and the construction of his banjo.

A top tension construction, a special tailpiece for controlled bridge tension, an arched fingerboard, old-style inlay pattern,  a pointed peghead design and hard heydua wood, combined with the dark ebony, to be inlayed with selected shiny red pearl.
The peghead was trimmed with a light brown pearwood purfling and an ebony binding. The back of the peghead has an overlay in a highly figured walnut, in harmony with the walnut resonator. This was done both to strenghten the sharp points of the peghead-design, as well as to increase the sustain, the vibration in this area gives to the entire instrument. The decoration for the additional purfling on the neck and resonator was a fine mosaic of whyte and brown small wooden blocks embossed between two black lines. Ivoroid binding  defined the outer edges. The heelcap and rim cap were made from highly fgured European walnut, choosen for its color, matching the heyduawood.

Four Keith-tuners give this banjo a wide range of special bending effects in the hands of a gifted player.
This banjo has a powerful voice. It's a versatile instrument for both traditional Scruggs-style playing and the sophisticated melodic approach  Bill Keith gave to the bluegrass banjo community.
I wish I could play just a little bit like Steve. But like my dear grandmother used to say: They call it playing, but in fact it's hard work. She was a humble wise woman with a heart big enough to hold all humankind. Wherever she is now, all my love.

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Left-handed bluegrass-banjo

Another lefthanded bluegrass banjo. Victor is a devoted father with a son who is a gifted mandolinplayer and a daughter who is a wonderful guitarplayer, gifted with a powerful golden voice. They have a family band, playing traditional and contempory bluegrass music.
Victor  had the same problem as Steve: being lefthanded.
So we teamed up to make this banjo for him: highly figured walnut, combined with the black African ebony .

A common style hearth and flowers motive was choosen for the fingerboard inlays and a more elaborate design was drawn for the peghead, revealing the first two capitals of Victor's name.
The flathead tonering of the highest quality and the close fit of all parts give this instrument a wide dynamic range of tonal qualities, making this an outstanding banjo for playing traditional Scruggs-style bluegrass music.
With this order I did not only make a banjo, I also made some nice friends.

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Five string old-timey bluegrass banjo

Highly curled maple stained in a rich and warm brown mahogany color, highlighted with a golden amber coat.
The inlays , made of engraved duncan shell, are  based on celtic designs. The inlay on the fingerboard , starting at the 12th fret is a traditional drawing from 'The Book of Celts', the upper inlay reveals a monsterbeast, spewing fire and flames, which continue in the peghead.  The wavy design on the headstock is based on the initials of the customer. It shows both the figure of a heron type of bird and the celtic harp as symbol for the music, two main interests of the customer. Delicate purfling of pearwood and ebony borders the peghead and fingerboard.

Basically this is a bluegrass banjo, however it is set up with an oldtimey feeling: the fyberskin head on top of a bluegrass flathead tonering. The amount of tension of the head was adjusted to give the banjo a nice dark sound.

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Modern bluegrass-banjo with  mexican turquoise inlays 
This bluegrass banjo was made for a musician whose love for bluegrass-music is equalled by his fascination for the culture and artwork of the native American Indian. The assignment was a superior bluegrass-banjo decorated with custom-designed inlays & engraving. The inlaywork was inspired by drawings that my customer made. He used to have a beautiful painting of the face of an Indian chief on his old banjo. In fact Norbert is a highly talented artist whose drawings and designs inspire me when my own ideas fall short. So once in a while he helps me draw custom-ordered inlays. Besides banjos and Indian culture we share a mutual enthousiasm for model railroad-mannia and traditional crafts.

The wood for the neck and the rim (Heydua) is an exotically grained type of soundwood that not only sounds great but also is a perfect match for the Indian designs and colors used on the fretboard, headstock, and the allround binding. The materials used in the inlaywork and the engraving for me sum up the almost countless possibilities you have when decorating an instrument: silver, brass, Mexican turquoise, Lapis Lazuli, colored binding, different species of pearl with all their shining colors and textures...

When making a highly decorative instrument like this one it is important that all decorations serve a purpose in the overall picture of the instrument. The result has to be a quality-made object using only first-rate materials combined with one-of-a-kind artwork & designs.

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