Open back banjo pricing

Open backs are expensive to build, mostly because of materials. They take a good deal more time, as well. I try and use all American made hardware and standard/high quality parts (like Gotoh tuners). Largely, I pass these costs on with no real profit. Want fancier tuners? I'll just let you know what they cost me and tack on the difference. But generally speaking, my starting cost is about $1,500. A bit more than half of that is just hardware and materials. These take a while and I do it for fun, plus a bit of cash to put back into nicer tooling and whatnot.

Reach out if you're interested. I can give you a guess on cost based on features, woods, etc. The main choices that most folks care about are:

• Rim size (11" or 12"): a larger rim gives a bit deeper tone while a small one cuts in a jam a little better
• Aesthetics: I love picking out interesting things, so if you say "builder's choice," I'll see what looks good at the wood shop.
• Tackhead vs hoop hardware: I can do a tackhead for a good deal cheaper only because I don't need to buy hardware, a tension ring, a tone ring, etc. I have a few examples of these: cherry, swoopy custom shape, classic minstrel-era style. Tackheads can also benefit from skin upgrades (see the gourd section, below).
• Tone ring: I'm partial to a Dobson here, which is what I've used on the last few. But you could save $100 or so (again, depends on my cost at the time) to get that older style plunky tone. Check the tackhead videos above for some examples.
• Nifty details: I generally include a peghead overlay, heel cap, and rim cap on my open backs (see any of the videos), but things like a backstrap, center strip on the neck, and so on are also completely doable!
• I can do things like fretless, flush frets (see below), or an instrument with hardware that's built for nylon strings. I'll include side markers, but I can get fancy (brass!?), too.

Things like scale length are flexible. I use shellac and Renaissance wax to finish nowadays, but there are other options, I suppose. Just let me know what sounds interesting. There are some more details in the bits below about my gourd banjos. I'll base the deposit on my materials cost and we can go over other details.

Gourd banjo pricing

The base price for a gourd banjo is $400. This includes:

• A four string banjo or a five string with the fifth string "floating" on the side (I install it so that it goes alongside the neck instead of over the fingerboard), see this post for an example of both.
• A fretless instrument with a bone nut, wood tailpiece with brass hardware, goat skin head, and an optional peg head overlay matching the fingerboard wood. Since it's rare to go up the neck on a fretless instrument, I feel that the markers are not particularly helpful and I personally like the clean look. The fifth string will line up with the fifth fret, but this also gives you the chance to move the bridge around and find the best sound without messing with intonation. But there are fret and marker options below.
• Standard scale, if there is such a thing for banjos, is 26 and 3/8ths inches. 25 and a half inches is a common short scale as of late. Other options include a long neck instrument or shorter lengths that you would tune up to A or higher. I'd also be open to things like a tenor scale. The length doesn't matter much for me on a fretless, though I'd probably add a small fee for fretted for flush fret versions.
• Violin friction pegs, Nylgut strings: choose between standard G tuning or “classic” tuning, which works for open D a fourth below standard or minstrel-era tunings (the lower tuning sounds great on gourd instruments)
• Maple, walnut, or similar common hardwoods for the neck and fingerboard: I usually make these as one long piece and use a "stripe" of the fingerboard wood to reinforce the neck. I can do it without the stripe or, for harder woods, this may not be necessary. The Nylgut strings don't have the tension of steel strings, after all.
• A hand-rubbed shellac finish with a coat of Renaissance wax.
• Handmade bridge: I’ll try a few things to see what sounds best to my ears and include that. Bridge height isn’t really customizable because it depends on the gourd and the natural stretch in the skin. I generally try to get the action as low as I can without buzzing and without losing volume. If you have different preferences, let me know. I’ll see what I can do.

Options

All of these are somewhat casual and depend on my time, what woods are in my garage, and so on. I don’t do a ton of this, so ask if you have any questions. Here are some common options:

• Frets with brass side markers at 7, 9 or 10, and 12 ($100); flush frets with brass side markers ($80, here's an example); or brass side markers only ($30)
• A fifth string oriented through the fingerboard like a standard modern instrument ($50) lets you fret the note. This is rare in banjo playing, but it's certainly an option. For steel string instruments, you'd often add spikes as a fifth string capo, but Nylgut strings can break more easily on sharp edges, so I don't generally do that.
• The price for premium wood like curly maple, exotic fingerboards and peg head overlays, and so on are mostly based on the added cost of wood. This is usually not much, probably $25 to $50. But I get most of my wood from a place up in Toledo and I don't drive up that way too often, so it’s hard to be exact.
• Geared Gotoh tuners are great, but they're far more expensive than the violin friction pegs I usually use. I’m happy to add these at my cost, which is usually $80 to $100 if they are available. These usually come in brass with black heads or nickel with black or white heads.
• Sometimes there’s a possibility of getting really nice looking skins from folks like John Balch or Jeff Menzies. These are rare, but if I can, I’m happy to pass them along at my cost.
• Speaking of the skins, I've stained them in the past and they look great. I've done it lightly with coffee or tea and with more extreme dark stains. This would be $20 or so and can look really sharp, especially with a dark fingerboard. Here's a good example of a dark stain and I did these two with coffee.
• The neat thing about something custom is the possibility of other fun ideas. Here's one where I messed with the shape of the neck to get a rounded fingerboard effect that I really liked, for example. Here's another with a neat scarf joint and contrasting lamination. Let me know if you have ideas and we can figure it out!

Other details

The cost to ship to the continental US is $80. We can find a time to meet and avoid paying for this if you're around northwest Ohio.

I ask for a $100 non-refundable deposit. Unless Reverb adds a way to do this without immediately having an item to ship, I'll probably have to take care of it with cash (if local) or something like Venmo or Paypal. This deposit will be subtracted from the total when the item is finished. I'll create a listing in Reverb (for non-local sales) for the remainder and use their standard process to handle payments: you pay, I ship, they release the funds, and the standard 7-day return window applies.

Within that 7-day window, you can request a return and I will refund the total minus my shipping costs and the deposit. The refund will process once I receive the banjo from you.

I usually sell through Reverb.com, which makes handling money easier (and more trustworthy). They take a cut, but I won't pass that along to you. If you’d rather send cash through Venmo or do something in person, I can drop the 10% or so that they take.

I’d generally expect a new build to take six weeks to two months, but I can turn them around a good deal quicker if I have the time. We can talk if you’re in a rush (or just excited).