1928 TB1 Gibson Banjo

1928 Gibson TB-1 banjo with a new 5-String neck built by Richie Dotson. Born with a simple "tone hoop", a stamped "diamond" flange, shoe brackets and a single coordinator rod, this banjo sounds nice and dry with quick decay of notes and powerful presence. I think it's the best sounding one that I have ever converted to 5-string. It has far more power that anything in its price range in terms or modern import banjos, and in my opinion, the old wood rim and resonator coupled with 95 years of time for that old wood and hide glue to make peace with being a banjo, that makes a huge difference in maturity of tone, volume and balance... The Honduran mahogany neck with the fingerboard, overlay, truss rod, nut, pip and even the frets affixed with hot hide glue also makes a big difference. Carpenters wood glue is easy to use, but it will never have the pure acoustic tonal transmission of hot hide glue. The Dotson .656 Crowe spaced bridge is made from 70 year old, straight-grained sugar (rock) maple and the ebony cap is also glued onto the bridge blanks before we carefully turn them into one of the world's most premium sounding banjo bridge with hot hide glue - and you really can hear the difference. This banjos isn't for sale, but for demonstration to show you what a simple banjo from the 1920s can sound like if set up well and with premium, perfectly fitted components.

[@banjobailey1849]

Great sounding banjo!!! Beautiful neck as always!

[@muttandjeff5213]

Beautiful banjo!

[@rudyjackson2253]

Great sounding banjo and great picking as well. I just bought a 1925 tb style 1 conversion yesterday and am excited to get to play it. Thanks for sharing and educating us on these old banjos as there’s not much info out there on them. Question, is these early 20s style 1s maple or mahogany resonator and neck? Thanks