I have not blogged
since 27 January 2015, a fact that some avid bloggers in the family tell me is
a cardinal sin in blogging circles, where daily jottings are far better to this
channel of communication that lengthy quarterly reports. I get that, I understand the premise, and the
utility of daily blogging, as much as daily jogging, but I generally don’t get
to that task – so instead, I’ll just go with another lengthy quarterly report
replete with 27 eight by ten color glossy photographs laboriously explained in
four part harmony. In case I don’t get
back to the job of blogging for another two or three months
. . .
In late September
2014 I took in a Cole banjo at the LBBH shop for repair. Here’s a good thumbnail history of William
Cole banjos:
Instruments marked
"W.A. Cole" on the dowel stick, like
the one I received at my repair ship, date from 1890 to 1926. When they
bought Cole's in 1922, Nokes & Nicolai, primarily drum manufacturers,
continued to make banjos and some ukuleles, presumably with the W.A. Cole name,
until they, in turn, were bought out in 1926 by the Liberty Musical Instrument
Co. of Chicago, IL.
Cole split up with
Fairbanks in 1890. Some of his
banjos are in collections from this period, and they represent essentially a
Fairbanks & Cole "Imperial" banjo but with no model designation
and only Cole's name on it. The neck angle adjustment mechanism that
appears on all Cole's Eclipse banjos is present on early models in the
1890s.
The metal tarnish, wear and tear on the
rim and the thin frets, plus the fret placement (by hand), suggest this banjo
is from the late 1890s- very early 1900s.
Cole started making
banjos under his own name in 1890. One of his innovations was the neck
adjuster plus neck collar mechanisms found on later "Eclipse" banjos
such as yours. The banjo that came to me for repair has these features.
The Model 5000 banjos
were the top of Cole’s line. They
featured imaginative peghead and fingerboard inlays with the exquisite
engraving seen on most Fairbanks and Cole banjos from this period. In
addition, 5000 Model banjos were characterized by finely carved boat heels, a
long backstrap, and cobra hooks on the rim.
I’d guess this banjo is a 5000,
though the heel carving is not nearly as ornate as I’ve seen on some Eclipse
models.
The Model 4000 banjos
featured engraved pearl on the peghead and fingerboard, a long ebony backstrap,
and a beautifully carved heel. The pearl inlay on the peghead was often
similar to that found on some Fairbanks instruments from the same period.
After the Fairbanks
& Cole partnership dissolved, Cole manufactured banjos under his own name,
the best of which were equipped with the "Eclipse" tone ring
system. The model 3000 was about in the middle of the Eclipse line, and
all featured lovely (uncarved) boat heels and exquisite engraved pearl
inlays.
The lower priced
"non-Eclipse" line (Model 2000) included the "sure-grip"
tailpiece (which is actually a cammed no-knot) and the patented Cole neck
adjuster. These banjos also featured pearl inlays and a boat-style heel
(no heel carvings).
The
"Professional Special" model in the Cole's Eclipse line date from
around 1900. These were well
constructed banjos without the fancy ornamentation of higher models, though
they did sport multiple laminations under the fretboard and fancy engraved
peghead inlay, and were fitted with the Cole neck collar used to tighten the
neck against the rim.
Model 1500, from
about the 1895/96 period, was just below the "Eclipse" line in the
Cole catalog, with fingerboards decorated with saw-cut pearl inlays and a nice
boat heel, uncarved. These came in
ladies or parlor banjo scales.
All of these models bore serial
numbers. I cannot find a serial number
on this banjo. That could mean it was a
parts banjo, drawn from existing stock in a factory or show room.
As Mike Holmes has
said:
Cole banjo serial
numbers are frequently on the top of the strut, on the side towards the head;
to see them you must first remove the head or use a mirror. Often the same
number is stamped somewhere on the inside of the rim, too. It can be faint, and
sometimes it was painted over, making identification even more difficult.
Occasionally, the rim number is between the head and the strut. Sometimes there
are only 2 digits, which match the last 2 digits of the serial number. Guitar
and mandolin serial numbers are generally stamped on the end of the peghead. (http://www.mugwumps.com/WACole.html)
The heel carving on this banjo does not
seem as though it would go on their highest grade model, but the inlay on the
fingerboard is certainly sophisticated enough to be from the 5000 series.
This banjo, with a
distinguished neck and notable fingerboard inlay, nevertheless represented a
challenge. The pot was seriously
ovalized – out of round from age and perhaps distortions that resulted from
temperatures in storage. A good deal of
the rim veneer was essentially suffering from the moral equivalent of dry rot
and as a consequence was disintegrating.
The neck itself was
modified to take a post-production fifth string geared tuner that was jammed in
tight and was further locked in by the shrinkage and warp of the decorative
veneers under the fingerboard -- those
have begun to split and have compromised the neck. The biggest problem, however, was the manner
in which the fifth string tuner was planted.
A good deal of the wood between the tuner post and the fingerboard was
gouged out to make room for the tuner shaft in a way that thinned the
fingerboard at precisely the point of that wonderful butterfly inlay. It made that butterfly inlay vulnerable.
That also made it
virtually impossible to plant a new fifth string peg to replace the old, broken
one. To do the job the “right” way, by
smoothing out the existing hole, doweling it and redrilling, I would have blown
past the thin wall that remained of the fingerboard in the area of the
peg. An alternative would have been
squaring off the area, removing all the wood, and redoing that section of neck
and fingerboard but it would have sacrificed the inlay and required at least a
partial refret – in the fact of the fact that the neck itself along the line of
the decorative veneers had begun to delaminate, I took the path of least
resistance and seated a modern fifth string peg using metal glue (and indian
ink for cosmetics). Not the best way to
do this, but the least costly method in view of the thinness of the already
compromised fingerboard.
The ovalization affected
both the rim and the tension hoop, meaning that the banjo was stored with the
old skin head on intact, and both the wood rim and metal were gradually taken
out of round. That meant putting on a
new skin head was a real wrestling match.
I used the original flesh hoop, with a bit of cooper tubing to lock the
unbrazed end, and counted on the skin itself to wrap the hoop close to the
pot. In the end, though, the hooks
needed to be reshaped slightly to fit the contour of the flesh hoop once the
new skin was drapped; I tried to make sure that the flesh hoop was most exposed
on the southern end of the banjo, symmetrically. One of the original bolts broke off in the
shoe shaft and had to be replaced; these were made of simple, and often brittle
sand cast metal. Putting on a skin is usually
a two day job. It was a four day job in
this instance, entailing close monitoring of drying time etc.
I used older friction pegs
as replacement for the after market guitar type tuners that had been installed
at some point. I filled and colored the
tip of the holes that had been drilled in the back of the peghead to accommodate
those guitar tuners; the holes are still visible but are effectively
sealed.
I cleaned the frets, and
cleaned the inlay and engraving, and stabilized the inlay with a combination of
cyanoacrylate -- super glue but carpentry grade strength and drying consistency
– and sandings from ebony to form a smooth filler.
I salvaged as many of the
loose inlay pieces on the rim as I could, clean the exterior and interior of
the rim, reseated the inlay, and stabilized the rim veneer where possible,
using a combination of a slurry of cyanoacrylate and ebony dust, and in some
areas yellow carpenters glue and ebony dust.
I then applied a layer of tung, buffed it, let it dry – and finished it
off with a coat of bee’s wax, buffed strenuously to form a finish coat. Still very uneven because of the way the rim
has delaminated over time in a varied way, but it should be essentially stable
(though not impregnable).
The sand cast tailpiece
was worn and eventually, as I was preparing to remount it on the banjo,
cracked. I was going to use a modern No
Knot, but the bulge of the flesh hoop over the ovalized part of the rim made
that impossible, so I installed an old stock simple, low profile tailpiece of
the sort that was common in the late 1800s-early 1900s.
I deployed a two foot
bridge by David Cunningham with a rosewood tip, (5/8th inches tall)
and used Nylagut strings; I am opposed to using even light gauge metal strings
on an old banjo like this, especially one where there is a bit of drying of the
wood, and any additional tension is likely to have subtle impacts on the
banjo. Plus, the combination of a goat
skin head and nylagut strings always produces a compelling sound.
I “rescued” some of the
old parts and put them together in a framed “window box” of sorts, preserving
some of the parts and pieces that hung on the banjo (original skin, tuners,
strings, etc) when the owner’s father played it, as a remembrance of sorts.
The banjo was intended as
a surprise gift for the client’s son, upon his May 2015 graduation from James
Madison University. This is one of those
instances when a client wants a badly beaten banjo salvaged, fixed up so it
would be suitable as a wall hanger.
Since this was a Cole, with a nice big pot, I had the sense it would
make a nice sounding banjo so I fixed it up to a level of playability – a bit
beyond the wall hanger level but there was always the chance that the grandson
would want to learn some clawhammer once he laid hands on this nice old banjo.
No comments:
Post a Comment