A Mini Gourd Travel Banjo and a Banjolele FULL BUILD

This is a double build I did with a mini gourd travel-sized banjo and gourd banjolele.
Both from the same piece of mahogany with lacewood and maple fingerboards.
Email me at [e-mail]

[@KwameCrawford]

Favorite KZbin Luthier 💪💪💪

[@phoebesanders2487]

This is so cool! Subscribed!

[@bengreco]

thanks! love your channel!

[@samuelgoad7320]

Perfect Trail instrument

[@Frostinabrokentree]

They turned out great ...nice

[@JoeyLioto]

Make a even smaller one

[@bengreco]

just wait

[@troccolo1209]

Hey Man, Awesome Videos. I discovered your channel a couple days ago. I especially liked your long build videos. Now i really want to build one on my own. Are there any important points I have to look out for, especially concerning the neck (size and shape) so that it will be tunable?

[@bengreco]

hey, thanks! Hope you go for it and build one! One think I've messed up before is make sure you leave enough wood on the neck width for the fifth string and fifth string peg. The neck can be pretty thin before the fifth string, but then it has to widen out quite a bit, or your 4th string will buzz against the pip or the 5th string peg. I make my necks out of one piece of wood. Usually for the 26.25" scale banjo, I'll start with a blank that's around 40" x 3" x 3"

[@KaChowAndTheGang]

This is awesome dude

[@hh4826]

Awesome

[@TheScruffynerferger]

Long piece of granite for a level sanding block works

[@Frownlander]

Wow!

[@kylewood4852]

Nice work man I love the wavy inlay!

[@kylewood4852]

By the way, did you find that fret saw online? That thing looks clutch.

[@bengreco]

thanks! definitely gonna do more of that. Yeah I got the fret saw off amazon for like 12 bucks or something, I think I just searched "fine kerf saw". The brand is Zona, they have all different kerfs for cheap

[@joesiemoneit4145]

nice job! what strings are you using? they sound quite tight! keep up the good work! greets from germany

[@bengreco]

used aquila nylgut strings on the mini banjo and just regular nylon uke strings. Vielen dank!

[@polimana]

oooo that's rad, my first instrument is 'ukulele, gotta play this fella. radius fretboard on an 'ukulele is so crazy

[@bengreco]

yeah haha idk what I was thinking with the radius, made it too hard to level the frets so that's mainly why I ended up flattening it back out

[@zachsurp]

yea bwoii

[@i.hate.swedish.ISRAELUBERALLES]

Please play rainbow connection by that lake

[@zachsmith5399]

Did you decide to flatten the fretboard after you sanded with the radius, or is that a normal part of the process?

[@bengreco]

I basically got in over my head when doing the radius, decided to scrap it, and flattened it out instead. Not a normal part of the process, just me fixing a mistake. It's really not typical to radius the fretboard for such a small instrument, and it was making it really hard for me to level the frets

[@zachsmith5399]

@@bengreco makes sense they look and sound great to me!

[@zachsurp]

do u drink Red Bull?

[@user-dr7wk6xd1r]

Are you from NY me too

[@bengreco]

cool! yeah I'm from upstate ny, utica area, but I've lived in LA for the past couple years

[@user-dr7wk6xd1r]

I'm from the Oswego county area but now live in Arkansas. I'm wanting to make some banjos like yours even though I can't play one!

[@bengreco]

@@user-dr7wk6xd1r I went to college at suny oswego! I'd say just go for it and make one haha, I personally think I'm more into the building than the playing