Porter Custom Calls was started in 2006 by me William M. Porter
due to increased demand for my custom box calls. Since a small boy I have loved the outdoors particularly hunting,
fishing and trapping small game and have been hunting 53 years with
firearms. For four (4) decades I have been involved with
wood working and metal working related to stringed musical instruments;
e.g., banjo, mandolin and acoustic guitar and hunting climbing apparatus
(Foot Climber Tree Stands) and will take you down memory lane with
pictures and narrative type comments, weaving together bits and pieces of
information as it relates to some of my early research and development
of
GIBSON MASTERTONE PRE-WAR BANJOS,
a more or less autobiography leading up to the present time.
I have featured special and
talented friends and family that have helped and inspired me
and in no way inclusive in this section and other pages throughout the
website. This site is more personal than
business but it is my desire for you to get to know me and the
custom turkey box calls that I can personally design and craft for you.
I have also strived to stay away from other call maker's signature designs but
some overlapping of generic features subject to public domain are inevitable
such as basic lid radius and shape and call body side angle.
I
DO NOT make copies, fakes or reproduction calls of other call
makers present and past and that includes the late great Neil Cost.
Porter Custom Calls
will not inlay various parts of the human anatomy that are considered
indecent, obscene and offensive or copyrighted logos and registered
trademarks of others.
Porter Custom
Calls are not only beautiful to look at, easy to use, in other
words user friendly and our modern day word usage of ergonomically
designed.
Porter Custom Calls have the ability to lure
wild turkeys within gun range when in capable hands
resulting in a rewarding
and successful
hunt. Visit the Photo
Gallery section of this website for a sampling of turkeys harvested.
A Porter Custom Call such as our North Carolina
"Limited Edition" Custom Deluxe will make an excellent addition to your
box call collection or a special one of a kind presentation
call.
Our "Pop"
William Allen Porter taught us the value and respect of the great
outdoors
and we shared many memorable days hunting cottontail rabbits with all breeds of hounds and later had to use the small beagles because of the increase in
the Whitetail deer population. Pop loved woodworking and made a great
porch/yard swing with the correct seat and back angle curve and used
"old world techniques" such as a draw knife, chisel, etc. to
fabricate his swings. Some of my earliest wood working projects
got its start from "Pop" who taught me how to make a rabbit box,
rabbit trap or rabbit gun, which ever you choose to call them. I made
"Pop" several drill fixtures with
hardened drill bushings over the years but he loved the ole way of doing
things. Pix of our Dad taken in the early to mid1960s with my dog Brownie. Pop passed away on August 10, 2007 after a
long battle with heart disease and inserted is the last pix I took of
him on July 4, 2007 while enjoying some ice cream and cookies at our home.
My sister sent me pix of his school days in 1934. Pop had a continuous
testimony for Jesus Christ, loved his Church and fellow man and he witnessed
to us and those in the hospital room hours prior to his death. He was
an honest hardworking man devoted to his wife and family and is greatly
missed but not forgotten!
Above three pixs of our "Pop" William Allen Porter
taken between 1934 and July 4, 2007.
William M. Porter is no stranger to woodworking and custom made
products having owned and operated a mail order business from 1969 to 1978
under the business names of Porter’s Musical Repair and Porter
Banjo Company, however I started acquiring the data and Intel collecting
process much earlier. In addition to supplying factory replacement parts for banjos, mandolins
and guitars, I custom made mother of pearl and abalone pearl inlay patterns
for prewar vintage instruments specializing in Gibson Mastertone
reproduction and conversion work and various stages of completion of banjo
necks, resonators, fingerboards, peghead and metal fabricated parts. I have
supplied mother of pearl, abalone inlay patterns and specialty
components to Gibson (inlay
patterns only via Carlton Pease), Martin (snowflake inlays via Mike Longworth), NBN,
GTR, Dobro, OMI (Rudy and Ed Dopyera), Custom Shops and Instrument Builders; e.g.,
John Monteleone,
Louis Stiver, Mandolin Brothers, Frank Neat, CE Ward, Bill Sullivan, Jim Yarboro,
Bob Shoe, Rural Yarborough,
Jennings Chestnut, Jim Selman, Dave Kennedy,
Harold Chriscoe, Paul Tester, Bill Gibson, Paul Sasser, Andy Boarman, Joseph F. Wallo,
David Musselwhite, etc., all over the United States and several countries.
I still have an old card file index of the mail order customers, however many are now
deceased.
Inserted a few pixs from that time era:
Bill Porter picking Dobro in 1975 with
"The Ole Timer's Club".
This pix is around 1977 and compressing 5 veneers to
form a curly maple Granada resonator back for a banjo
and adjacent pix of some burl walnut resonator backs for #5 Deluxe
resonators. Press was custom made using a steel channel frame and
a 20 ton manual hydraulic press with heating elements on both upper and lower
molds. The molds were made from aluminum truck pistons that were melted
down and sand cast with final truing of both pieces on a CNC lathe.
Harold Chriscoe of Seagrove, NC purchased the above resonator press with
over 400 pieces of 15 inch square 1/16 inch thick extra nice curly and birds
eye Northern hard rock maple veneer and Gibson original type 1/10 inch
poplar for the center core of the resonator backs sometime around 1980.
Harold let Doug Hutchins have the resonator mold and raw
materials of which he is not using the press but has it in storage. John Bowles of Advance, NC ended up with the matching curly
maple side pieces if I am not mistaken since they were thick enough to use
for violin and mandolin sides. Very few craftsman today
fabricate a resonator back and sides identical to pre-war Gibson's.
Several custom banjo makers "cheated" a little on the resonator
sidewall construction which is acceptable by using multiple style laminations
instead of the Gibson style of construction. To basically get the same
Gibson look alike or clone results, a 14 to 15 inch diameter 1/2 inch wall
thickness drum hoop could be used without any steam bending and you cut it
down to the required size with a band saw and cut the proper length lap
taper of which saved a good amount of time and did not require a lathe
turning operation, only a table router set-up. Back in the early 1970s the
drum bent wood head hoops were very cheap and
readily available about 25 miles from my shop. The center poplar
lamination was mimicked by using a 3/32 to 1/8 inch veneered panel which had a
heavy poplar core and was easily bent to shape without steam and the outer
face lamination was glued in place with contact cement and/or hide glue,
etc.
My custom made sidewall press consisted of an outside diameter
steel mold/ring and the center compression element featured a three jaw lathe chuck with three special
shaped cauls to contact the inner lamination. The three jaw chuck
applied enough pressure to compress the plys.
NOTE: Frank Neat of Russell Springs,
Kentucky recently obtained the above resonator mold/press and the side wall press
from Doug Hutchins and also the Kennedy "Jellyroll" prototype
wood rim machine that I used for a few years. Updated on
05-31-10 by Bill aka Mickey Porter.
There is night and day difference between volume and
tone when swapping around resonators on some banjos that have the top
tension hoop and others as well. Gibson in later years (post-war) used
glue in thin flexible membrane sheets placed between the resonator back
laminations that was activated by the usage of high frequencies reducing the
amount of cure or dry time! I personally prefer the old style of
construction as they seem to sound better to me!
A few more pixs from the musical instrument making
days: Sheet brass .063 thickness was die stamped to fabricate a metal
flange for early
Gibson tube and plate banjos. Mr. Lomb of Waverly in NY
purchased sheet brass and brass tubing for me direct from the mill and had
it drop shipped and saved me a pile of money on raw material cost. I
still remember the empty coffee sacks they used to send small parts like
pre-war replica banjo hook nuts and they knew how to be conservative and
frugal. Some of the best nickel plating on my tube and plate flanges
was out sourced to them and the copper and gold plating was done in High
Point, NC. Old timers like Mr. Lomb are a thing of the past when it
comes to helping someone get started in business! Insufficient capital
is the main failure of a small business.
Tone hole die set in action.
This
part required a 60 ton press to stamp the OD/ID and was “farmed” out
to a metal stamping company in Charlotte, NC of which I owned the large die
stamping set and the
rest of the stamping was done in house using a small 5 ton mechanical
press with an indexing fixture. Parts were then "out sourced" and
nickel and/or copper/gold plated. A few years later, Gibson Musical
Instruments decided to produce the tube and plate flange again due to
increased demand. That part had not been manufactured by Gibson since
the early1930’s, however their new tube was much thinner walled than the
original and they milled more off the back side of the tube for the plate to rest
against and many broke where they were silver soldered together. The
plywood wood rim that Jasper Wood Products supplied them was equally as bad
and would not support the tension exerted between the flange and the tension
hoop pulling the bead portion of the wood rim upward and on some banjos a
complete separation. Horrible indeed!
The tube portion of the flange required a bender with
special spiral tooling to transform a ten (10) foot section of 3/8" diameter
heavy wall (.095 +- .005 inches) brass tubing into a coil rendering 3 complete units and it took seven other fixtures including silver soldering and a
lathe operation. My tube and plate flange was identical
to the original 1925 parts or at least the pre-war original I used as a
pattern since there were a couple different ID for the tubes no doubt a
product of tooling changes, etc. of which was a very small variance.
While manufacturing the pre-war tube and plate flange,
I made a prototype plate (circa 1975) for the tube and plate flange and
used a copyrighted design from my "flaming Claw"
pattern and below is pix of the plate portion of the tube and plate flange.
The tone holes were cut by hand using a jewelers saw blade and was very
laborious. I had intentions of making my Porter Flaming Claw banjo but
the inlay and parts business kept me a bay and traded the below one of a kind plate to Jim
Yarboro and he installed it on one of his Noble banjos.
I later got the plate back from him in 2004 and might put it on a banjo one
of these days. The tone hole pattern is beautiful and the proper size
for sound projections from the resonator. Bill Sullivan (deceased) of First
Quality after seeing the flaming claw flange and plating it for Jim Yarboro wanted to manufacture
his own plate flange with my tone hole pattern but it was
copyrighted even though Jim Yarboro had the only one made and Jim Yarboro
would not allow Bill to manufacture it. Pix
below:
Around 1976, I started inlaying an engraved mother of
pearl PREWARTONE block at the 15th fret to the
fingerboards of my Flaming Claw banjo and used the
logo PREWARTONE on my banjo
strings and received a US Trademark Reg. No 1,044,105 on July 20, 1976 for
PREWARTONE.
I never did go into production with the banjo because I could not keep up
with the custom inlay and parts sales. The parts and inlay business
was really booming after the movie Deliverance came out in 1972 featuring
the instrumental "Dueling Banjos" but sales started really
dropping fast around the end of 1977 and I had a lot invested in tooling,
whereas Japan started turning out "imitation" parts,
accessories, inlaid Gibson style fingerboards/pegheads, banjos and reproduction stuff like
crazy. Japan supplied a tube and plate Gibson copy flange retail priced
cheaper than my raw material cost for my own two piece flange!
Pix above of my 1970's catalog mailed out and hard to
believe the price of a Gibson flathead tone ring which retailed for $32.00. A saying from one of my Ole Timer's
Club friends Brutus
Gale, "That was back when a dollar was big as a bed sheet"
which was a fairly accurate statement; a little before the inflation
of the mid to late seventies kicked in. I find it hard to believe
today that one could keep so many things going but when you are in your
early twenties, the energy and enthusiasm level has to be at a maxim
as compared to the senior citizen status now....grin on that statement.
It was an excellent experience and did meet and make a lot of friends over the years!
The above address (now a vacant field) and telephone numbers are
obsolete.
During my mail order business days, I purchased metal
standard stock banjo, mandolin and guitar components directly from
manufacturers that supplied Gibson and other musical instrument
manufacturers like; Kluson, Waverly, Zaharoff,
Bird's Eye Maple, Schaller, Harris Ltd., etc. and
was able to sell at a minimum of 20 percent below retail price (MSRP) and items
manufactured in West Germany (specialty items) such as wood purflings,
bindings, etc. , a sizeable mark-up was possible before the devaluation of
the dollar took place. Ebony back in those days was jet black with
very little white streaks and the wonderful Brazilian rosewood before the
trade embargo!
Pix
of several banjo fingerboards and pegheads being inlaid with mother of
pearl. Mother of pearl price in the early 1970’s was around $35.00 per
pound. Now the price is over $400.00 per pound. In the 1970's,
Porter was considered "The Source" for accurate Pre-War reproduction
inlay patterns. I normally kept about 20 sets of pre-cut inlay
patterns for each standard pattern on hand and inlaid in the Gibson pre-war
style by cutting a hole through the peghead and fingerboard material.
With many pre-cut inlay pieces on hand, I was able to choose an individual
inlay piece that matched the pre-cut hole in the peghead and fingerboard
with a high degree of precision. Gibson stacked up a dozen or more
peghead veneers and pegged them together and cut through all of the veneers
using a German made marquetry saw using a large #6 jewelers saw blade. If
your saw is accurate enough and you don't force feed/cut the material, the
piece on the bottom of the stack will match the original pattern very close.
Inlays produced today using the high technology CNC machines are far
more accurate and precise but lack the individual artistic touch and
variation in design that the Gibson pre-war instruments posses.
Current CNC production inlays emulating Gibson patterns look like they are cut using a cookie cutter,
meaning each individual piece is exactly like the other without the old
style square saw cut backs into the design which gives it character and eye appeal.
Gibson used poplar wood (heavy veneer) at least 1/10 inch as a backing for
their Mother of Pearl and Abalone inlays and it not only gave support to the
material but used as a means to maneuver the material into the
jewelers saw blade. I have seen a few tenor/plectrum necks
cannibalized for the inlays that had mahogany used as backing for the mother
of pearl inlays, but this is rare! The German made marquetry saws Gibson used for
their pre-war inlays has long since been out of production and the new
machines are not as accurate.
CNC machines (routers) producing mother of pearl and abalone
inlays and inlaid fingerboards and pegheads is definitely the way to go for
production and there are some fine examples of artistically
produced designs
only limited by the programmers artistic ability since cutters are now very
small and durable! I certainly don't mean to detract from the many
artists using those machines but I personally don't like them on pre-war Gibson
inlay designs though. It just doesn't have that variable hand cut look
to the inlays. CNC machines has the precision not found in
hand cut designs. I am sure if Gibson had access to such machines in
pre-war days, they would have used them! No more inlays that I do, the
cash outlay just doesn't justify owning a CNC machine.
A trick in removing Gibson inlays and backing
from pre-war fingerboards is to use vinegar saturating the inlay area and
the vinegar will normally dissolve the binder used in the filler. Try
it and you might be surprised!
Above pixs of a few of my Gibson Mastertone banjo
mother of pearl inlay patterns (master patterns) I cut and had
them photographed and offset printed patterns for cutting and inlaying
purposes. Little digital camera doesn't capture the detail in the cuts
since they are mounted under glass. It was individuals like
myself and many other custom instrument makers that "forced" Gibson
Musical Instruments to reintroduce their old style Mastertone series banjos
due to the increase in demand. It only took them about four (4)
decades to get back on the band wagon so to speak.
NOTE: GIBSON USA takes a firm
and aggressive stance against all makers of counterfeit instruments and
their distribution channels, therefore I would caution anyone against making
a complete Mastertone aka Masterclone of their instruments, present day and
past using the Gibson
logo on the headstock although the early inlay patterns sans the Gibson logo
are subject to public domain.
Pix of some of the Gibson Mastertone Pre-War tenor and
plectrum necks collected over the years. I counted about 35 at one
time and had an original Pre-War five string RB3 (late)
neck that Tom Morgan
of Tennessee had cut in half to see how the truss rod worked; at least
that's what Paul Tester of Landover Maryland - deceased related to me of
whom I purchased the neck from. The neck was operational at the time
it was cut in half end to end and I believe had a broken heel that was repaired. The above 1/2
RB3 neck (5th string side) is in the
above pix, 4th from left in the background beside the Hearts & Flowers neck
which has the Mastertone letters inlaid in the peghead! If
memory is correct, the truss rod configuration is opposite from what one
would think, but what makes it work is the entire truss rod is still below
the center line of the neck, therefore the weaker side gives it in to the
force straightening the neck if the neck is bowed. However, the truss
rod doesn't work for a back bowed neck. My entire Gibson pre-war neck
collection was sold to Wayne Peterson in Minneapolis, Minn. but he
said he didn't get the pre-war 1/2 5-string banjo RB3 (late) neck and can't
remember who I sold or traded it to or if I had both halves of the neck at
one time either! CRS disease I guess!
Note: Wayne Peterson doesn't have any of
those Gibson necks left, however he does have plenty of old catalogs and a
few other odd ball necks and other things of interest for the collector! 10-29-09.
I used the best of Gibson's work in order to get a
master pattern cut for myself. Some of Gibson's inlay work were
horribly cut and most of their inlaid fingerboards and peghead has a
tremendous amount of filler but I have seen some examples that would be hard
to replicate that were nearly perfect also. The workers at the factory
were on production and got paid extra for anything above their production
quota according to George Hall of Kalamazoo, Michigan - deceased.
There are a few "odd balls" in the above group made by Gibson and had a Bella
Voce with a different fingerboard and have seen and had original necks with
mismatching inlay patterns apparently ordered by the original customer.
Above pixs of a custom inlaid Smith and Wesson skinning
knife that I did for myself around 1975. I retired that knife to my
show case in the early 1990s. The
mother of pearl inlays are from a copyrighted pattern of mine titled
“Flaming Claw” and my standard pattern I used on banjos and Dobro
aka resophonic guitars. The inlay work on the knife handle was all
free-hand if I remember correctly due to the curvatures of the handle on all
sides.
Specialty items and parts such as the Pre-War Kershner
banjo tailpiece, banjo hook nuts, resonator hardware, Pre-War wood purflings
for Gibson Mastertone banjo Granada, #4, #5 Deluxe and Martin
Pre-war wood purflings were made in West Germany for me and the first to
offer those exact reproduction items for sale. There were some close
imitations out there but none as precise as those I had made. Note:
Pre-War references prior to WWII.
Part of my early banjo research and development
involved having several pre-war Gibson Mastertone banjo tone rings (flathead
and archtop) analyzed
with the then state of the art spectrographic analysis machines to
ascertain what the actual composition of their tone rings were and for those
that think it was some great secret, one of the foundries that Gibson used in
Kalamazoo, Michigan was Riverside Foundry and Galvanizing Company and the alloy used was a standard
Navy G bell brass alloy according to former
Gibson employee George Hall (deceased) who worked for Gibson from 1927 through out 1933.
The thing about pouring a composition alloy
made up of different metals such as copper, tin, zinc, lead and other
metals, the evaporation rate and alloy will change when reheating and
pouring the same ingot and the analysis results proved this and enough
tone rings were analyzed to find out the common alloys used.
During
THE GREAT DEPRESSION ERA, it appears from
spectrographic analysis results that Gibson apparently used what ever copper
alloy either Navy G, Tin Bronze or variants supplied to them of which is
understandable.
Joe Spann, Research Library Director, posted an article on
08-19-09 in www.banjohangout.org
whereas, he researched surviving Gibson financial records showing large
regular payments to Star Brass Works of Kalamazoo, Mich. (circa 1895-1961) from Gibson that reached
a high of 3600 per month as of April 1930 and with a total estimated
banjo production of 8000 banjos in 1930 and very convincing evidence that
Star Brass Works was
Gibson's main source for tone ring castings since Riverside
Foundry and Galvanizing Company did not have brass pouring capacity until
1935. Whether or not, Riverside Foundry subcontracted brass tone ring
castings prior to 1935, I certainly don't know.
As for the best sounding pre-war tone
ring to my ears it was the Tin Bronze alloy and not the
Navy G but that is only my opinion since hearing is subjective. I have
heard one stainless steel tone ring mounted on a good three ply wood rim
that had it all; ring was turned from a solid piece of material and not
cast. Far to expensive to attempt to manufacture and sell one that
way!
Many have asked about how Gibson pre-war
tone ring alloys varied and the copper content varied from a
minimum of 64.87
percent to a maximum of 98.8
percent. The 98.8 percent copper
was from a TB7 flathead tone ring which was the most radical departure from
the Navy G bell brass or bronze. I received sample scrapings from John
Monteleone Guitars of Islip, New York on 03-19-76 of the above tone ring and
also traded some mother of pearl inlays to John Monteleone for a couple
partial castings of the tone ring shape for my research.
An analysis from a TB3
40 hole arch top serial number 9237-10 belonging to James Fuquay
(deceased) of Danville, Va. had a copper content of 64.87, lead content .87,
iron content .052, tin content .082 and zinc content 34.05 and nickel
content .072 and smaller traces of bismuth, arsenic and silver no doubt
products of the plating or impurities.
One of the lowest serial number 40 hole arch
top rings model 3 serial number 836-1 around 1929 or 1930 had the following: Copper content
86.9, tin content 8.3, zinc content 4.1 and lead content .7 all in
percentages. This tone ring was nearly identical to QQ-B-691 Comp.
6 called Tin Bronze. I received a portion of the above arch top
ring from Clarence Hall of Stuart, Va. on 01-01-75 for the analysis.
Notice this alloy is very close to the QQ-B-701a grade 6x that Gibson found
on the 1929 TB-3 raised head tone ring they had analyzed! Pix below by
permission of
Clarence, Spring 2009 holding the banjo and from left to right; Gene
Parker, Doug Hutchens and Allen Mills.
A pre-war arch top Gibson banjo Uke
tone ring (never installed) serial number 69 with no holes drilled in
it was found at the factory by Davis E. Kennedy who worked for them prior to
1970 and the analysis of that tone ring was: Copper content 69.8, lead
content .006, Iron content .013, tin content .042, nickel content .014 and
zinc content 30.1 percent. I let Jim Yarboro of Gun Barrel City have
that tone ring several decades back.
Gibson did their own analysis of a 1929 TB-3 Raised
head tone ring per Dave Kennedy who had a copy of the original document as
follows: Copper 84.48, Tin 10.63, Lead .43, Iron trace, Zinc 4.5
balance and all are approximate. Alloy commonly called trolley
brass similar to Federal specification QQ-B-701a grade 6X or
85-10-1-5 referred to as Tin Bronze.
Gibson tone rings from the period 1949 to 1969 were as
follows: Copper 85%, Tin 5%, Lead 5%, Zinc 5% per alloy specifications
which doesn't mean that is what they always obtained. Not impressed
with this alloy! Too much Lead!
Gibson later flathead tone rings catalog TOR898 were the Navy G Bell Brass
consisting of: Copper 88%, Tin 8% and Zinc 4% and their weight was 3
lbs. 4 oz. (52 oz.). Excellent sounding banjos with a pre-war
wood rim!
Why Gibson chose the Navy G Bell Brass versus the
QQ-B-701a grade 6X or QQ-B-691 Comp.
6 called Tin Bronze which in my opinion is
far superior is a mystery which was available in the 1970s.
Naval Bell Brass 523B2 is now obsolete and consisted
of: Copper 78%, Tin 22%. Note: Higher tin content
provided better protection in the harsh salt water environment but makes a
harder tone ring to machine.
Commercial Bell Brass 523B2a consists of: Copper
81%, Tin 19%.
Paul Tester (deceased) of Landover, Md. related to me
on 09-16-76 that Steve Ryan's tone ring alloy was composed of: Copper 80%,
Tin 15% and Zinc 5% according to Steve Ryan. I do know they were top
of the line tone rings making excellent sounding banjos and some of his
flathead tone rings went as high as 3.9 lbs. in weight.
My research did not reveal any
two tone rings having exactly the same composition (although
close enough to identify a specific intended alloy) and doubt
there are such tone rings but it certainly is possible. Tone ring high
profile (flathead) weight and mass, (45 to
55 oz.) depending on the alloy either Navy G Bell Brass, Tin Bronze or alloy
mixes between those are more critical
to that ole pre-war flathead sound (tone ring portion only)
than a percentage or two variation in a specific alloy. I am referring
to the basic alloy components of copper, tin and zinc. Other alloys
added for machine ability such lead, however does make a drastic change! Changing
percentages of alloy components varies the tone ring weight even with the
same physical tone ring size/dimensions. My favorite Gibson pre-war
flathead tone ring weight was from 51 to 52 ounces to my ears and produced
the sound that I liked the most!
With all the well known and talented individuals and
Companies manufacturing and selling tone rings with claims their tone rings match the Gibson pre-war
formula, I surmise about any tin bronze
composition/formula either current, pre-war or obsolete alloy used today would substantiate
and validate said claims due to the wide variance of alloys that are in
those Gibson pre-war tone rings!
There is simply NO
single
Gibson Pre-war Tone Ring Formula!
Period.
I have to grin at
all the claims of the new and improved pre-war original
clone tone rings
from the same makers every few years, but that is what keeps
$ cash $ in the cash
registers and banjo makers and pickers happy! I am not discounting
that some later clone tone rings are better than their earlier counterparts
and some worse but it is possible to do it right the first time with all the technology at
our disposal today! One of my pet clichés,
"Normally you get
what you pay for" doesn't always work for the vast amount of high dollar,
high technology Masterclone tone rings available today. I
expect the next development will be some secret alloy mined from the surface
of the moon to give that pre-war sound. Grin if you must!
I can make the analogy or
comparison of the sale of prewar clone
tone rings to the deer hunter who will spend 40 dollars per ounce for deer
urine taken from one single doe in heat (estrous) in hopes of harvesting the
next Boone and Crockett World Record Buck and that is about as clean and to
the point as I can tell it!
The problem is not so much as knowing what the
intended alloy is in some of
those pre-war tone rings, but the difficulty in getting a consistent pour
from tone ring to tone ring! A single tone ring using the old sand
cast method that was widely used in the depression era might yield several
different analysis results at different places within the tone ring due to
the method of pour and the cooling rate. Today, there is
technology
available that is non-destructive to the
part being analyzed and it would be great if someone
would take one of their "Holy Grail" banjos and have the tone ring
analyzed at different places to ascertain what the alloy is and the variance
at different places of the tone ring
and let the rest of us in on it! But wait, the magician doesn't
reveal his secrets either...go ahead and grin because I am!
Even with the known composition of a pre-war flathead tone ring, and a
reproduction with an exact match, that still doesn't guarantee you the
pre-war sound even though very, very close!
This could be the
(missing link)
that I have overlooked and maybe others too! However, I have taken
samples near the top of tone rings, the lower portion and mid-way but have not
had several samples taken and analyzed from the same tone ring to ascertain
a metal pour variance
within the tone ring!
Centrifugal casting of modern tone rings is
far
superior to the pre-war sand cast method producing a much more consistent
and purer tone ring, however the expense is greater for short production
runs!
"There is no one
single Magical banjo component manufactured today whether it is a tone ring,
wood rim, flange, resonator, neck, etc. that will match and fulfill the
sound that is in one's own head or psychic emulating the elusive Gibson
pre-war Mastertone sound; it is just the nature of the beast!" If the banjo
is not a pre-war original and uses the pre-war Gibson Mastertone design, it
is a
copy or
clone,
regardless of who made it!
Bill aka Mickey Porter
I have a sound file of a Gibson RB75 flathead Serial
Number DA5055 belonging to John Bowles which in my opinion is one of the best
examples of what in my mind is the Gibson Pre-War Mastertone Sound:
DA5055
sound file in .mp3
Many have alluded that the "Holy Grail" pre-war banjo
sound so many have referred to over the decades as far as the Gibson pre-war
Mastertone flathead banjo itself, is more or less a product of accident or
random chance of the specific components. Every Gibson pre-war
flathead is not a jewel tone wise, yet still
has a certain distinctive sound, some much better than others! There has not been
conclusive evidence to support that Gibson actually did prior tests of
various tone ring metal compositions prior to the production of the archtop
and flathead tone rings and there was no mention of any tests done by George
Hall, Gibson employee 1927 thru 1933 that was present at the factory with
the introduction of the both the archtop and flathead tone rings.
George Hall simply stated they (Gibson) used Navy G bell brass which was not an
exact
science as evidenced by the spectrographic analysis reports of a sampling of
their tone rings.
How many times have "we" purchased an instrument
that had that magic sound we wanted at the time and find out a month or so
later after really playing the instrument that it did not have that magic
sound we were looking for?
Personally, I would have a stable full of those ole
pre-war Gibson Mastertone flathead Stallions but my pockets are too shallow...grin now!
Anyone who has owned or had the
opportunity to view original Gibson pre-war Mastertone banjos either
flatheads or raised heads up close and personal that have been completely
disassembled will find all kind of anomalies and various imperfections that
have been salvaged at the Gibson factory such as three ply wood rims that
have a couple additional filler strips glued in place on the resonator side
of the wood rim to hide very ugly ill fitting glue joints of which some
times the banjo is a complete dud because of a non-responsive wood rim.
Gibson placed the best fitting three ply laminations that did not need
filler strips next to the resonator (not always) and the worst fitting side
under the tone ring which was hid from view unless disassembled. Many times the maple
or poplar filler strips being 1/8 inch in width appear on both the upper and lower
side of the wood rim and extended about 1/4 inch in depth into the wood rim
and sometimes not that deep, just enough to hide the bad glue joint.
Archtop to flathead wood rim conversions will go beyond the depth of the filler
strips manifesting the bad glue joint. I expect this was for
cosmetic reasons instead of a better sound but from an
acoustic standpoint it would tend to be superior. I know of
one such original wood rim from a Pre-War Mastertone that was sawn in half
(not by me) to find out why the banjo was a total dud and revealed at least
an 1/8 inch width (void) space between one of the three ply
laminations the entire height of the wood rim which Gibson glued a filler strip on the bottom and top of the wood
rim to conceal the bad open joint. There are several theories about
"Dead Space" in wood rims as to the relationship of
vibration transfer within the wood rim from well know authorities but I take
it as a grain of salt without merit! I equate such theories as
something that cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt; those
theories are simply an opinion! Tone rings many times are way too
loose (tone ring will come off wood rim if wood rim is inverted) by gravity
alone or either too tight fitting
(tone ring will not come off the wood rim without excessive force or having
to use use a band type clamp to twist tone ring off the wood rim).
Tone ring should be able to be removed from the wood rim with hand/thumb
pressure and at the point that you think you will not be able to get the
tone ring removed from the wood rim...that is the optimum fit, however many
prewar Mastertone
banjos have sounded great with a loose fit but they probably would have
sounded much better with a proper fit. Improper neck heel
angle fit to the wood rim requiring the wood rim to be grossly distorted by
the coordinator rods to adjust the action has ruined many good original
banjo wood rims that have a permanent set (oblong shape) on the bottom of
the wood rim which can bend the lower portion of the tone ring out of round,
depending on the alloy used and thickness of the lower portion (skirt) of the tone
ring. The list can go on and on. According to
George Hall, Gibson Great Depression Era employee, they did not throw much stuff away if it could be used at
all due to lean depression times. Gibson carried that psychology of
being frugal into post war production as well...looks like we might be heading that way
again too!
Back in the early 1970s, I missed the opportunity to
purchase at least one pre-war flat head Mastertone banjo that started out at
the factory as an archtop and Gibson cut the wood rim down and installed a
flathead tone ring with the cut decal in place, whereas I surmised it was a
post-war conversion but years later proved to be a factory pre-war
conversion. I think many of us can look back and see many mistakes we
have made instrument trading, etc.!
Bronzes from "Henley's Twentieth Century
Formulas, Recipes And Processes" circa 1916.
"The composition of bronze must be effected immediately
before the casting, for bronze cannot be kept in store ready prepared.
In forming the alloy, the refractory compound, copper, is first melted
separately, the other metals, tin, zinc, etc., previously heated, being then
added; the whole is then stirred and the casting carried out without loss of
time. The process of forming the alloy must be effected quickly, so
that there may be no loss of zinc, tin, or lead through oxidation, and also
no interruption to the flow of metal, as metal added after an interval of
time will not combine perfectly with the metal already poured in. It
is important, therefore, to ascertain the specific weights of the metals,
for the heavier metal will naturally tend to sink to the bottom and the
lighter to collect at the top. Only in this way, and by vigorous
stirring, can the complete blending of the two metals be secured. In
adding the zinc, great care must be taken that the latter sinks at once to
the level of the copper, otherwise a considerable portion will be
volatilized before reaching the copper. When the castings are made,
they must be cooled as quickly as possible, for the components of bronze
have a tendency to form separate alloys of various composition, thus
producing the so-called tin spots. This is much more likely to occur
with a slow than with a sudden cooling of the mass."
The above reference certainly shows the difficulty of pouring bronze alloys
in the Gibson Mastertone era and gives some insight why there are so many
different variations in the analysis reports of Gibson pre-war tone rings
from the same original alloy mixture!
I will put
my money on a good three-ply wood rim especially Gibson pre-war, one
without any voids covered up at the factory by splicing a filler strip
between bad glue joints or a current well made one piece
laminated old growth hard northern maple ( Acer saccharum) KENNEDY "jellyroll"
style wood rim
versus an
original pre-war tone ring any day of the week as far as sound production
(volume and timbre) goes!
A good wood rim is the heart beat of the banjo. All things have
to be made and fitted correctly but again the wood rim is the key component when
comparing banjos to banjos. If I were in the business of selling a
special one of a kind tone ring, then there might be a different sales pitch
but I am not in the business of selling neither tone rings or wood rims and
can afford to be objective, unbiased and conclusions made backed up by
experimentation with enough scientific evidence to prove my point.
Reproduction Gibson style 3-ply maple wood rims made back in the
1970's through the 1990's along with current ones, whereas many of
them after 10 years (and some within a few weeks) have shown a slight separation of the plys either by the
wood shrinking or the glue line shrinking. Some of the early
Mastertone 3-ply wood rims show the same thing, however most and the better
sounding banjo's wood rims are very tight and not able to detect any
separation of the laminations either by sight or feel. Gibson
gave a boost to their pre-war wood rims with the extra filler strips glued in place
between separated plys for cosmetic reasons when fitting the tone ring and
flange and certainly helped the 3-ply wood rim integrity for tone
enhancement/production if the plys did not have excessive void places
between the laminations.
There is a noticeable difference between the
craftsmanship of the Gibson three ply wood rims prior to 1930 and most of
the two piece flange wood rims were far superior in the plys fitting
together with more precision requiring fewer "filler strips" to hide a bad
glue joint! Many of the pre-war wood rims for the two-piece flange had
a center ply thickness between .312 to .375 inches and many observers get
confused by the installation of the filler strips thinking they are looking
at a five (5) ply wood rim.
1974 R & D Jellyroll wood rim using Dave Kennedy's prototype rim machine.
Take a close look at the above pix of
the glue line of the "jellyroll" wood rim that
I personally made using Dave Kennedy's prototype rim machine and dissected
manifests what a glue line or the lack of a glue line should look like.
No voids in a wood rim laminations equals a superior sounding banjo with all
other things being correct. The jellyroll wood rim makes
more engineering sense to me for absolute flawless glue lines with
less things that can get out of tolerance such as; wood thickness,
wood lamination length, taper angle length, grain structure from different wood
billets/fletches, etc., but now we
get back to the Holy Grail Syndrome because Gibson did not invent and
use the process even though one of their former pre-war employees George Hall
conceived the idea many decades before Dave Kennedy built his
prototype wood rim machine or at least that is what George Hall related to
me. There is no question that Dave aka Davis Kennedy built the first
jellyroll wood rim building machine and at least one other instrument maker
has followed Kennedy's lead in this area! It is to my understanding
that Davis Kennedy supplied Gibson with his jellyroll wood rims (at least 60
units) but he could not supply their demand and one other individual copied Dave's
jellyroll wood rim construction and attempted the same thing.
Below are pixs taken by Luthier Chris Cioffi of
Springfield, Tennessee; telephone 615-382-1376 showing how Gibson
made their pre-war wood rims for the tube and plate flange and an excellent
drawing by Chris of how they mortised a piece of maple into the outer
lamination to get the extra diameter needed to capture the radius portion of
the tube. The tube and plate flange wood rim is one of the strongest
wood rim systems made but was very labor intensive and replaced with the
introduction of the one piece flange (OPF).
Check Chris Cioffi Banjo Services out at:
Banjo Hangout:
Chris has the expertise and qualifications to do banjo repairs/construction
needed!
You have to look very close at most of the Gibson pre-war tube and plate
flange wood rims to notice the glue line of the mortised in strip of wood
(tenon). Gibson did not waste labor by tapering the ends of the
tenon as evidenced by the gap which was covered by the heel of the banjo
neck. Jimmy Cox at Cox Banjos,
Topsham, Maine 207-725-4677, in my humble
opinion is one of the best post war three ply wood rim makers today,
including the mortise and tendon wood rim for the tube and plate flange.
Some argue that three separate laminations make a
better rim because of the different grain structure but enlarge the pixels
in the lower pix above of the jellyroll wood rim and observe a noticeable
contrast between the grain structure of the wood layers even though the
single piece of wood is from the same fletch or billet! It appears
that three separate pieces of wood were used to create the jellyroll wood
rim, whereas one single length of Northern hard rock maple was used.
Wood density, grain structure pattern variance along with cell
crystallization within a single piece of wood is a
somewhat shielded mystery as to the relationship between it's final effect
on timbre or tone and the ability to promulgate
sound waves! I do not have a conclusive scientific answer as to
the cellulose crystalline structure in a developing wood cell wall and what
takes place within the cell wall after the wood has been harvested, kiln and/or air dried,
steam/heat bent, etc., but I know what works most of the time!
Hard Rock maple was a term used and derived from
different types of Maple trees, the rock maple tree and the hard maple tree
and came about in the 1960s when the Colonial American style of furniture
was in demand again. Hard maple (Acer saccharum)
is heavy, strong, hard, tough, stiff, close grained and shows mineral lines
and grey streaking in the heart wood with over 200 species and shrubs
worldwide and divided into two groups: hard and soft. Sugar maple (or
rock maple: acer saccharum) is the most common hard maple. Silver, Red
Maple and Box Elder are more common soft maple species and grow across North
American and are less dense.
Also, I have no evidence that animal hide
glue is superior to our modern glues as far as giving that magical
timbre to an instrument. Hide glues are definitely not as strong as
the original Titebond (aliphatic resin) glue that I have used since the late 1960s and my own tests
have the wood pulling apart before the glue line shears. There are
places where animal hide glues are called for such as violin tops, etc.
where a part at some point in time might need to be removed, but
I sold my electric glue pot decades ago and have no desire to purchase
another one either! If you witness wood separation at a glue line,
doesn't that give you a clue something is wrong? The majority of wood
rim separation of the plys normally is faulty glue, absence of glue to begin
with, improper clamp pressure and application time or too much moisture content in the wood when the glue was originally
applied and several other factors more difficult to ascertain.
If everyone thought "inside the box"
as
some of our traditionalists, we would still be using long bows as implements
of war instead of our smart bombs! I know this is a two edged sword
statement, but someone has to say it again and the parallel can be made to
musical instruments as well. I myself am guilty of using the ole
cliché, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and there are many
applications to use such a statement but hide glue is not one of them.
If
I had to put a percentage on the relationship of the
importance of the wood rim versus the tone ring, I
would go at least 75 percent in favor of the wood rim
and this is a very conservative conclusion. Even a pre-war high
profile flathead tone ring
on a poor wood rim will yield poor results but an excellent well made hard
rock maple 3-ply or jellyroll wood rim will
yield good to excellent results with about any modern Gibson reproduction
high profile well fitted tone ring! If there were no merit to my assessment of the pre-war wood
rims on lesser model Gibson banjos without a tone ring, why are they so
expense today and in such great demand just for the pre-war 3-ply wood rim
and/or resonator in order to covert to a Mastertone? Most will render
a timbre or tone that is normally not found using current manufactured
reproduction 3-ply wood rims and the wood rim is the foundation or building
block of the banjo...... that is why! That's my story and I am
sticking to it!
An original pre-war flathead tone ring will sound
different when installed on different pre-war wood rims, current made 3-ply
maple wood rims; whether Timeless Timber, Factory Floor, Cox,
Cooperman, Yates, Huber, Kennedy jellyroll style or any
combination between....I certainly don't have a definitive or
absolute answer as to why!
Wood (trees) at one time was a living thing and I guess
you can make the analogy to human DNA, no two are identical! The
photosynthesis process we associate with the leaves, soil nutrients, climate
variations, temperature, annual growth, all contribute to this
mystery (timbre)!
Plant
cell drawing.
Read further down this page under the paragraph titled,
"My attempt to explain timbre" concerning old wood.
Jasper Wood Products
in the 1970s supplied Gibson with multiple (6 or 8) ply laminated banjo wood rims of
which rendered some of the most horrible sounding out of the box Gibson
Mastertone banjos ever made! The Jasper wood rims were seemingly more
glue and lacquer than wood and the tone ring I.D. hung over the edge of the
wood rim which was about one lamination shy of 9.5 inches I.D. This
wood rim was prone to pull apart at the lip area that contained the tube of
the two piece flange. I had one of their stock Jasper wood rims
in one of my 1969 banjos before using the Kennedy machine produced jellyroll
wood rim and would not do that again.
A few builders of of late have come around to this way of thinking
that do not have the incurable "Granada Holy Grail Syndrome"
permanently embedded in their brain altering the process of the cerebral
cortex. Many talented banjo pickers are unable to distinguish the
difference between certain pre-war flathead banjos played versus some
excellent post-war banjos in a blind hearing test which manifests a whole
arena of self biases, prejudices with predetermined invalid preconceptions.
Personally, the
pre-war Gibson Mastertone flathead banjo style of construction
(as a whole) are still the best
5-string banjos ever made for Bluegrass style picking!
Any banjo
manufactured today using the above style is still a copy or clone,
regardless of what name is on the peghead. The same goes for a guitar,
mandolin or any other product.
Jim Selman of Akron, Ohio has been
"preaching" the
importance of the wood rim for many decades and had a positive influence on
Bill Sullivan (deceased) of First Quality Music to produce the "Old Growth
Wood Rim". Jim Selman has purchased and/or traded more pre-war Granada
flathead and archtop banjos than probably any person in the USA. Both
Jim and myself have seen some cheaper models of Gibson banjos pre-war and
post-war banjos with a pre-war original wood rim and just a 1/4 inch brass
rod/tone ring that would knock the socks off most any post-war Mastertone
banjo! I expect Jim Selman purchased about as many complete inlaid
peghead and fingerboards from myself than any other individual and/or shop
during my own "music hay day." Jim Selman has also sold
Earl Scruggs many original banjos over the years! I am not talking
about Jim Faulkner, that is another story.
Above pix of Jim Selman and the pix on the right is Jim
Selman and Earl Scruggs 1959.
Many of Gibson's original prewar three ply wood rims
that were left over at the factory after they ceased production of the Top
Tension models 7, 12 & 18 Mastertone banjos and RB75's has turned up in early post war Gibson banjos like the
early RB100 and RB150 and have made some outstanding flathead conversion banjos.
The aging and drying out of a wood rim after it
has been steam and/or heat bent to shape and also after the gluing operation
is a key missing element in today's production and short run production
banjos! Some of those wood rims were the full 3/4 inch thickness at the 1/4 inch
diameter brass tone ring portion for the archtop which had the 1/4 inch
diameter (rod) tone ring positioned toward the inner side of the wood rim. Gibson kept about a year's supply of
wood rim components already bent to shape and in various stages of
completion in a very large heated drying room according to George Hall who
worked there from 1927 thru 1933. Their method of wood rim construction
was very crude by today's technology but very effective back then when labor
was cheap and plentiful.
Early
recordings
of Gibson Mastertone banjos (Fisher Hendley with his 1937 purchase RB
Granada flathead FE) without
the benefit of high tech studio enhancements in the 1930's thru the 1940's
proves many of their banjos "right out of the box" had what it
takes without the benefit of time as myself and others elude to instrument
age as one of those missing magical components and is somewhat paradoxical!
I
gave away and hauled to the land fill over 55 gallons of research data with
a large amount of original Gibson factory data collected from George Hall,
Davis Kennedy and others that worked at the Gibson factory, prewar and
postwar but hindsight always seem to be 20/20 for sure...go ahead and grin
on that statement. So much for needing more valuable file cabinet
space!
Check this
link
out!
I give a tremendous amount of credit to Mr.
George
Hall (deceased) of Kalamazoo, Michigan who worked for the Gibson
Musical Instrument Company from August 5, 1927 through out 1933 and possessed a huge amount
of knowledge of every aspect of the Gibson Mastertone Banjo construction and
"picked his brain" many, many times via telephone and letters for
manufacturing details. I did have some of his hand drawn
sketches of
Gibson's Pre-War banjo wood rim bending machine and he was the first
person to detail a banjo wood rim made like a "jelly roll"
; e.g., one
continuous 10 ft. plus piece of 1/4 inch x 3 inch hard rock maple wood steam bent
and rolled onto a 9.4 inch diameter (elliptical) shaped steel wheel, dried and glued at the
same time consisting of four complete revolutions or more depending on the
wood length, with each end feather
tapering to make a complete round part after a lathe turning operation.
George stated that Gibson were just finishing up using the ball bearing tone
rings and were getting the arch top tone ring castings in from Riverside
Foundry and Galvanizing Company there in Kalamazoo, Michigan when he started
to work for them. George took an original factory pre-war tone ring
(archtop) while he was working there and made a modified flathead tone ring
out of it.
George told me the factory allowed new employees to build an instrument of
their choice when they went to work for them as part of their on the job
training. I don't know what happened to his one of a kind banjo he
built but he said it would go to the grave with him if he didn't get the
price he was asking for it; 50K in 1975. That banjo had an awesome tone and volume.
Dave Kennedy observed one of the flathead tone rings that George Hall had
modified and he described it as having saw cuts on the inner portion of the
ring that contacts the top flat portion of the wood rim and the cuts were
done with a hack saw with the spacing matching the flange tone holes.
Dave stated that he was not impressed with the modification. I lost contact with his daughter-in-law over the years and never asked about
George's banjo. Many of the Gibson employees named by George Hall
during our many hours of conversation over a (Watts telephone line)
that did specific production tasks have faded from my memory since I took
only sparse notes back then. One has to be familiar with a production
environment to be able to fit the pieces of the Gibson Mastertone banjo
mystique together with some
degree of accuracy and clarity! Many of Gibson's
"floor sweep" banjos sold in the late 1930s
thru the 1940's were actually put together from components made during the
depression era and a banjo date of sale on an invoice does not provide an
accurate infallible cross reference to the (FON) factory order number/bin
number as to the actual
date the banjo was manufactured. Original pre-war Mastertone banjos
left the factory with mismatched individual components such as resonators,
necks and wood rims due to the depression and the need to complete a custom
order and Gibson themselves altered some of the original serial lot numbers
to effect the order.
Gibson had a tremendous distribution network (dealers)
nationwide and one must conclude that a company of that size would have to
stock a sizeable inventory of their catalogued instruments due to the amount
of time it takes to manufacture a banjo from start to finish.
Instruments sold in the mid 1930's certainly reflect they were made much
earlier and besides, "You can't sell what you don't
have in inventory" and those were hard times!
According to George Hall, individuals were assigned
production duties such as turning of tone rings, resonators, wood rims,
cutting wood rim pieces to length, bending wood rim components, gluing the
wood rims, bending resonator side walls, gluing operations of all types,
neck blank operations, gluing mother of pearl onto backer boards, scribing
patterns onto inlay material, cutting the mother of pearl designs,
cutting fingerboard and pegheads in prep for the inlays, inlaying the
pre-cut inlays, binding resonators, slotting fingerboards, fretting
fingerboards after inlays prior to gluing onto neck blanks, staining and
lacquer, etc., and
assemblers/fitters of the final components by bin number. One has to imagine the
tremendous amount of instruments possible and warehoused from a production
environment and inventory ready to be sold. George Hall stated the FON
(factory order numbers) aka serial numbers of the banjos whereas they were
built (housed in roll able storage bins in lots of 40 units, however there are many bin numbers on FON's that go beyond
40, some with much less bin numbers and missing FON's and out of sequence and "the more information revealed, the more questions arise!"
At
some point in production, you will reach a point or level called,
diminishing
returns and 40 units could have been Gibson's
normal point of
diminishing returns! Just a "guesstimate".
NOTE: The
information that George Hall related to me concerning his employment with Gibson and Gibson receiving tone
ring castings from Riverside Foundry and Galvanizing and whether or not
Riverside
subcontracted tone rings or the information is totally inaccurate, I don't know.
I can
only
relate what was told to me by George Hall since he worked there. I scanned some notes
I made on 11-30-75 while talking with George Hall about the Gibson tone
rings and called Riverside Foundry on 12-01-75 and talked with Mr. R. G.
Diephuis, Sales Manager and he said their records did not go back that far
to 1927. My interest and intent was to get Riverside to manufacture
tone rings for me in 1974 if they were not locked into a current contract
with Gibson. My
goal was to ascertain the tone ring composition/alloys in Gibson's pre-war tone rings
and I accomplished that goal with the majority of the tone rings being
the tin bronze alloy. Most
of the documents and drawings I received from George Hall have long since
been thrown out and could only find the letter dated June 4, 1973, and one
dated May 6, 1976, whereas
he was still somewhat loyal to Gibson after all those years and would not
hand address the outside of the envelope on one of them for whatever reason I can 't
remember. George still had a good relationship with Gibson after his
1933 employment and was up to date on a lot of their jobbers that supplied
parts to them in the late 1960s thru the mid 1970s. I followed up on
several of those sources which were accurate at that time. It is
to my understanding that George continued to tinker with building banjos and
scrounged old parts from his contacts at the factory and who knows what type
of "Holy Grail" parts are in some of
those banjos he put together for his students!
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT GEORGE
HALL
Joe Spann, Research Library Director and professional
genealogist, provided additional information concerning the date of George
Hall's employment with Gibson of which I updated and in 1930 his title at
Gibson was simply "musician" and in 1931 he is described as an
"experimental
manager." In the final year of his employment at Gibson (1933) he is
described as an "inspector." By 1936 he was in business as a locksmith
and was running a small locksmith shop in Kalamazoo. His October 9, 1978 obituary
describes him simply as a "professional musician" at Corsiglia's restaurant
in Portage, Michigan. It also mentions his great love of horses.
George had only one son Roger Hall who died in 2000 thus ending Joe Spann's search.
Joe Spann provided this information via an email on 09-25-09 and is very much appreciated!
I had one picture of George Hall standing beside one of
his horses of which I could not locate. I was very fortunate to have
known George Hall only via telephone and letters and one of the few
individuals today that had actual contact with a Gibson employee that
worked there from 1927 thru 1933 when Gibson manufactured some of their best
Mastertone banjos. Therefore, I certainly feel the information I
received from George Hall is reliable and credible.
I have a hyperlink to a
document scan
from Riverside Foundry and Galvanizing Co. dated 09-26-74 for a quotation
for 100 tone rings lot (high profile flathead) cast from
QQ-B-701a Grade 6X tin
bronze, similar to commonly called trolley brass, however I never did
order the tone rings from Riverside Foundry and Galvanizing Co. I found out
about the trolley brass or tin bronze years before I had MacMillan Research
do the spectrographic analysis of the samples I sent them as evidenced by
the Riverside Foundry and Galvanizing Co., quotation for the QQ-B-701a Grade
6X alloy and also had a copy of the analysis report that Gibson did on the
1929 TB3 archtop tone ring. So much for "trade secrets"! I guess the
ole saying, "Loose lips sink Battleships" holds some merit after all!
Grin now! I was not convinced about Gibson using one alloy for their
tone rings since there was such a difference between pre-war banjos that
were set up properly. Some were run of the mill banjos and others were
great and that is what sparked my interest in having several tone rings
tested. My money is still on the old 3-ply wood rims, especially those
that did not need filler strips to hide the bad open glue joints!
I used the firm MacMillan Research, Ltd. located
in Marietta, Georgia to do the spectrographic analysis of the samples
submitted and they were signed by J.E. Mac Millan, Ph.D. Chemist and trust
the accuracy of the reports.
I certainly enjoyed doing the
research about the Gibson pre-war tone rings and I am sure I only scratched
the surface so to speak and definitely not an expert at anything, whereas
others have continued the quest for the Holy Grail banjo sound and
have made great progress to supply some outstanding tone rings as close as
possible to the original alloys as can be made today along with great 3-ply wood
rims and resonators.
The only element missing is the natural aging
process (crystallization) of the wood cell components after the part is fabricated and the limited supply of Northern old growth
hard rock maple wood for the 3-ply wood rims which time will tell how successful "we" have
been! How long does it take to age an instrument in....that is
very subjective, but an instrument made right from the start
doesn't take that long! Instruments that I have personally made, after
10 years there has been a noticeable difference in the timbre of the
instrument with the biggest element being the reduction of overtones and a
deeper and more mellower tone and an increase in instrument volume.
Many banjo gurus have come to the same conclusion that it takes at least 10
years for an instrument to age in giving the qualities I mentioned
earlier. Again, this is still a very subjective area and regular
playing of an instrument helps accelerate the age in process.
To paraphrase what one excellent
craftsman stated to me concerning current
banjo gurus of the Gibson Pre-War aka The Great Depression Era Mastertone banjos,
"Today, builders are simply uncovering the dust where
many have already been and trying to re-invent the wheel again."
To repeat what I stated earlier,
"Personally, the pre-war Gibson
Mastertone flathead banjo style of construction (as a whole)
are still the best 5-string banjos ever made for Bluegrass style picking."
Bill aka Mickey Porter
Back in the early 1930's a barber named Jim Graves who
owned Graves Barbershop in Wadesboro, NC had a Gibson dealership as a part-time venture and several
Gibson Mastertone 5-string flathead banjos were sold to individuals within a 10 mile radius of
which I tracked down. "Buck" Wheless's dad "DeWitt"
Wheless of
Ansonville, NC ordered an RB3 flathead around 1934 and had Jim Graves send it back to the factory to
exchange it for a gold plated flathead and don't remember him mentioning
anything about an engraving pattern on it and it took only a few weeks to
process and
Buck Wheless could not remember if it was mahogany or curly maple wood on
the neck and resonator. A banjo trader here in NC found out about the DeWitt Mastertone Gibson banjo
around 1960 and visited DeWitt Wheless and "Buck" Wheless was present when
the banjo trader persuaded his dad DeWitt to sell him the banjo if he ever
decided to sell the banjo since "he was wanting a good
Mastertone banjo to play for himself" which was not
entirely accurate.
Shortly after DeWitt Wheless died on February 16, 1961 the banjo trader showed
up and purchased the banjo from "Buck" Wheless sometime
within the next month for $150 dollars and "Buck" felt like he was obligated
to sell the banjo to him who "Buck" did not realize that he
was a professional banjo trader.
"Buck" Wheless told me on 09-14-09 that Jim Mills
had visited his home about three years ago doing research on the DeWitt
Wheless banjo and knew where the banjo was located and had his hands on the
banjo and thought it was a consecutive serial number to one of
Fisher Hendley's Mastertone banjos. Buck later told me that Fisher Hendley's
banjo and his Dad's
banjo
were ordered the same day and later received the same day via train shipped
to Jim Graves (Graves Barbershop) In Wadesboro, NC. Fisher's Hendley's banjo
was serial number 9584-3 belonging to Mr. Earl Scruggs after going
through a couple different professional musician's hands.
Note: I followed a couple leads on the
above banjo on 09-18-09 and 09-19-09 and talked to it's current owner who
wishes to remain anonymous on the web at this time and he
purchased the banjo from the same banjo trader mentioned earlier in the
Spring of
1965. He stated that he gave 1500 dollars for the banjo and that the
Hearts & Flowers fingerboard had been replaced at the factory with their
standard bowtie inlays and some refinish work was done on the banjo right
after Carl Hunt purchased the banjo from the same mentioned banjo trader in 1961 and Carl Hunt
later sold/traded it back to the banjo trader for another flathead banjo, (The Jessie
Brown banjo) of Polkton, NC that was also purchased by Jim Graves, Gibson
dealer in Wadesboro, NC. It makes one wonder
why Carl Hunt traded the
Wheless Granada back to the same banjo trader for a lesser grade banjo after he received the
Granada banjo back
from Gibson with the new fingerboard, however each one of us has our own
unique preference toward
sound. The current owner had the bow tie inlaid fingerboard later
replaced by CE Ward.
A local banjo player Brutus Gale (deceased) who owned a
shoe repair shop in Wadesboro, NC and played with the Anson County Ramblers on radio station
WADE in the 1940s, related to
me that he played both banjos that Buck's dad had purchased and he said the one Graves sent back to the
factory sounded better than the gold plated flathead.
The current owner of the Wheless Granada banjo visited
my shop in the middle 1970's, however we didn't discuss his Granada banjo of
which I was unaware that he was the owner of the Wheless Granada banjo. Man,
that was about 35 years ago! The Granada now has an original
style Hearts & Flowers fingerboard done in Brazilian Rosewood by Harold
Chriscoe of Seagrove, NC and I
believe is the 4th fingerboard on the original neck.
The Wheless banjo serial number is 9584-5 and is one of
the Granada Holy Grail banjos from the same production lot as Earl Scruggs
SN 9584-3 originally belonging to Fisher Hendley and Sonny Osborne's SN
9584-2.
Below is one of two existing pixs of DeWitt Wheless
with his Gibson RB Granada Mastertone Hearts and Flowers flathead banjo with a double
cut peghead. I enlarged the pixels and noticed the standard Granada
engraving pattern on the armrest. Whether or not Gibson retrofitted
his existing banjo with gold plated parts in 1934, or replaced the entire banjo, I
don't know. The banjo is a 1934 purchase RB Granada flathead after consulting
with the current owner. The Granada has the old style resonator
featuring two wood purfling rings in the resonator.
Picture taken in 1940 with Joe Hildreth standing with
guitar, Dewitt Wheless banjo, Jim Hildreth mandolin, Blake Hildreth guitar
sitting and David Lear fiddle. Group named "Skillet Lickers".
Banjo fingerboard does not have an inlay at the 15th fret!
Enlarged pixels of the armrest which has the standard
Granada engraving pattern on it...I could not make out anything on the
clamshell tailpiece or the tension hoop at that camera angle or the type of
wood. Talk about being excited after viewing the armrest engraving, I
knew it had to be a Granada:
The other pix of DeWitt Wheless and his band, a few years earlier around
1936 in Charlotte, NC. I think Crazy Water Crystals was one of their
sponsors:
I have a sound file of the Granada played by the current owner that was
recorded about five years ago. Click on
Dear Old Dixie to
open a .mp3 sound file which is a little over 2 megs. in size. A good
solid Scruggs sound for sure! Those that have heard the banjo
recently, state that it has a much better sound than on the track above!
It was great to bring closure to the DeWitt Wheless banjo since I had looked
for it as early as 1969 when I started my Musical Instrument Repair business
and didn't have the time or resources to invest in such a great banjo that
is now part of the Granada Holy Grail Legacy!
Below pix of Buck Wheless 09-17-09:
Buck Wheless, son of DeWitt Wheless came by the house
with two pixs of his Dad and I scanned them and presented Buck with one of
my Porter Dual Hens Field Grade Box calls made out of Butternut wood base
from Kentucky and Cedar wood lid from Anson County, NC. Buck still
turkey hunts and hope he will harvest another one this coming Spring season
with this call.
Mr. Brutus Gale (mentioned above) also owned a Gibson
1934 purchase RB3 flathead SN 9528-1 that had a wreath inlay pattern on the peghead and
fingerboard that he purchased from Bill Thompson in Wadesboro, NC in 1945 for 75 dollars that was purchased
from the Gibson factory by Jim Graves. I personally talked to Bill
Thompson in the late 1960s and he steered me to Brutus Gale who stated that the same earlier
mentioned banjo trader came by and looked at the banjo several times in the early to mid 1960's
trying to purchase it and when he became sick needing money, he swapped the
banjo for an RB250 and I believe was given 150
dollars "boot". The same banjo trader later came back and swapped him a cheap
Kalamazoo banjo for the RB250
banjo with additional "boot", whereas he sold the RB3 wreath flathead banjo to
Junior Lowery of Goldhill, NC of whom John Bowles of Advance, NC purchased
the banjo around 1974 either directly from Junior Lowery or another
individual by the name of Jones. Junior Lowery offered the banjo to me for 1500
dollars in the early 1970's but I knew he was not serious and I couldn't afford the
banjo at that time anyway due to a growing family (three kids). I guess all
this was said to show how fast Gibson could deliver a banjo in the 1930's of which they
apparently had a good inventory of instruments on hand. The above
banjo is shown on Greg Earnest
website with pixs. You could order basically any inlay pattern of
your choice according to Brutus Gale and George Hall in addition to Gibson
using up what materials they had on hand when discontinuing standard models
as evidenced by the mismatched patterns on existing pre-war Mastertone
banjos.
The Gibson RB3 flathead banjo serial number 9473-2 (not the Wheless
Granada banjo) that Carl Hunt
(deceased) who played with The Arthur Smith Show in Charlotte, NC on WBTV
Channel 3 back in the 1960's was sold to (Jessie Brown) deceased of Polkton, NC by Jim
Graves in the early to mid 1930s of which again the same earlier mentioned banjo trader purchased it in
the early 1960s and sold it to
Carl Hunt. Carl Hunt left the banjo case behind his car and ran over the
banjo and broke the neck of the banjo and CE Ward of Charlotte, NC built a
replacement neck but the banjo didn't sound as good with the original neck.
There is much to be said about banjo necks also! Below pix of Carl
Hunt at Union Grove Fiddlers Fest in 1967 taken by Ken Landreth with the Jessie Brown all original
flathead banjo. Photo courtesy of
Gene Knight, Marshville, NC:
Gene Knight stated that the neck and banjo pot assembly
were later separated and Al Osteen had the neck and the pot assembly was
stolen serial number 9473-2. CE Ward
stated that Carl Hunt loved to play that flathead Gibson and would stay up
all hours of the night playing when the rest of them had long sacked out!
In the early 1970's I talked with Jim Graves daughter
about her Dad to ascertain if any records existed of his Gibson Music
Dealership and there were none. Graves Barbershop was located in the
basement of the old Lyon Building on the square in Wadesboro, NC which later
burned down in 1983 and a vacant lot now.
To get a perspective of the price the Gibson Mastertone
banjos sold for in 1934
as it would relate today, the average cost of a new home was $5970, average
wage was $1600 per year and the cost of a gallon of gasoline was .10 cents.
There were many, many folks that made far less than $1600 per year
especially in poverty stricken areas where the unemployment rate was well
above the National average of 22 percent. Considering all of those
factors, a similar Masterclone banjo
manufactured today is still a bargain. However, the original pre-war
Gibson Flathead Mastertone banjos have inflated over a thousand (1000) times
their original sale price in less than eighty (80) years! It is also
hard to believe that some model Gibson Mastertone pre-war flatheads 5-string
banjos that sold for 1500 dollars in 1965 are now worth between 125K to 250K
depending on how deep the buyers pockets are.
It all boils down to, Supply
and Demand and the quest for the elusive pre-war sound? and the
opportunity to have what is considered the bench mark or best, whether
real or imagined. Lets face it, there were only so many made and the
demand far exceeds the supply and there are those today that have the resources
to purchase and/or invest in something that most cannot rationally attain!
There is nothing wrong with
buying the best if you can afford it!
Most of the people
I interviewed or their children in the late 1960s that purchased pre-war Gibson Mastertone banjos
during the depression era,
were in some well paying job or self employed; definitely living "high
on the hog" as ole timers would tell it!
COST OF LIVING IN
1965
Average new house cost $ 13,600; average income per
year $ 6,450.00 and cost of a gallon of gasoline .31 cents.
The die-cast one piece flange (OPF) was outsourced by
Gibson to Dohler Die Casting Co. and later the company became Doehler Jarvis to reduce the raw materials and labor cost and not as any sound
enhancement contrary to what many believe. I have seen at least three
(3) different banjo neck heel sizes for the OPF including an early Granada and
there might be as many as five (5) different sizes since they made the one
piece flange (OPF) larger and thicker with each mold revision for strength purposes due to the
weakness of the Zamak
(pot metal) used. Whether the one piece
flange and rim is superior in tone production is and has been open for debate for
decades.
Many are not convinced that the one piece flange is superior
to the two piece flange, but the Granada Holy Grail
Syndrome players are using the one piece flange
banjos and who does not want to follow the leaders that are or were the best
in the field! Grin if you must! I have seen many wood rims that
were still 3-ply construction and not 4-ply as most but had a thicker center and
outer ply necessary for the tube and plate flange since the overall
thickness of the two piece flange wood rim was a little over 1 inch versus
3/4 inch for the one piece flange. On about all the pre-war 3-ply wood
rims for the tube and plate flange, a separate lamination was added to the
outer ply and glued into a very tight fitting mortise joint that was shaped
to fit about 1/2 the radius portion of the tube. I have never
witnessed that outer lamination separate from the outer ply of the 3-ply
wood rim. A very solid method of construction but very labor intensive
to say the least and was replaced with the introduction of the one
piece flange/wood rim.
I personally don't believe the additional width at the
bottom portion of the wood rim changes the resonant frequency of the air
chamber inside the resonator
enough to impede the volume and tone, however the extra weight of the wood
rim added is certainly open for debate and discussion as to volume and
timbre enhancement or reduction. The tube and plate flange was produced
in house by Gibson employees of which I can personally vouch for the labor
part. My system of taking a 10 ft. piece of .375 inch diameter heavy
wall brass tubing and wrapping it around a mandrel and cutting down through
them to produce three (3) complete units was exactly the method Gibson used
and George Hall and Dave Kennedy provided nearly all the info to produce
that part. It took some experimentation (trial and error) to ascertain
the amount of spring back in the tube before a final spiral bending fixture
was manufactured. The coiled tube was then placed in a dedicated cut
off saw/fixture which produced the desired ID for the tube. John Bowles of Advance, NC has all the tooling;
dies, etc., I had manufactured and made to produce the tube and plate
flange. One single production run of the tube and plate flange paid for the entire tooling and
equipment investment which I believe was less than 6K and ahead of the
introduction of the Japanese imitation banjo parts. Can you say
"Cooperate Greed Of America" as to the culprit!
Clermon "CE" Ward (deceased) who operated Ward's
Musical Repairs in Charlotte, NC. back in the early 1960's was one of
the earliest to do Gibson Mastertone banjo conversion
necks in NC and has cut up more tenor and plectrum original banjo necks
than any person in this part of the country, maybe the US. CE is an
outstanding banjo and mandolin picker and won the Banjo Picking Contest in
Union Grove, NC way back when. CE had a contract to do Band Instrument
Repairs for the Charlotte School System and also later worked as a auto body
repairman. I "gleaned" from his experience and he was a
foundation stone in getting myself started doing custom inlay work.
I later supplied him with the majority of his Gibson banjo inlay patterns.
CE made outstanding reproduction F-5 mandolins long before
Gibson reintroduced them again and many of his F-5's are in the
hands of professional musicians today. CE is retired and lives in
Concord, NC and below pix of him and Bill Simpson around 1979.
CE Ward (left) in the pix and Bill Simpson (right in pix) was a tool and die maker who did a pile of my
early fixtures for metal components. In the early
1970's, I purchased CE's show cases when he closed his Music Repair Shop in
Charlotte, NC and still have two of them today for my archery and reloading
supplies and equipment. CE continued to do music repairs and build
instruments while he worked full time with a Ford dealership in their auto
body repair facility after closing his Charlotte, NC repair shop and
relocated to Concord, NC.
I find myself using some of CE's favorite sayings such
as, looked like a rat t--d in a flour sack when he described
some bad looking instrument work and "Rube Goldberg"
and Cloverine Salve. CE
was a very colorful person and didn't mind speaking what was on his mind and
would give you his opinion if you asked for it and most of the time without
asking...grin now! I certainly do miss CE Ward!
CE had a Fender banjo that he put together from a half
dozen other Fender banjos and he turned down an offer around 1975 to
purchase an original RB18 from the banjo's second owner, the
same mentioned earlier banjo trader for 700 bucks because his Fender
would cut rings around the RB18. If memory is correct, I believe
the banjo trader brought the RB18 to CE Ward to have him replace the original calf
skin head on the banjo and offered to sell him the banjo at that time. Grin or cry on that one! That
same banjo was offered to another individual for 1000 dollars and every time
the perspective buyer went back with the money, he would up the
price 100 dollars each time until he finally agreed on the price tag of 1500
dollars and when the buyer returned with the money, the trader had already sold
the RB18 to it's current owner two weeks earlier. The
third owner of the RB18 purchased it for 1500 bucks and it is an excellent
all original banjo not for sale. I had the opportunity to put my large
calibers/micrometers on the RB18 Serial Number 744-1 flathead tone
ring on 10-06-77 when the owner had it completed disassembled but the owner
was afraid to allow any filings to be removed from the tone ring for
analysis. His RB18 wood rim has the filler strips installed both on
the top and bottom of the 3 ply wood rim which makes one think it is a 5 ply
wood rim of which it is not. The tone ring weight was 3
lbs. 2 oz. (50 oz.) weighed on a U.S. Post Office certified scale and
was .004 out of round at the top I.D. of the edge of the wood rim and .012
inches out of round at the outside diameter (10.997 and 10.985 inches)
- no doubt conforming to the shape of the wood rim over the years or vice
versa. The wood rim outside diameter at the extreme edge of the flange
was between 11.007 to 11.018 inches (.011 inches out of round) and matches
the tone ring out of round within .001 which was pretty close for a non-machinist
using the calipers!
One or two noticeable features of the above tone ring
was a ping test conducted did not reveal much vibration or tone generated at
all and didn't register on my testing equipment. The owner was very
alarmed over the ping test results and when he set the banjo back up, the banjo sounded great!
Also, the radius on the outer portion of the leading edge where the head
makes contact with the tone ring has a very small radius (nearly square).
Small subtle things when
compounded, creates a major difference in the long run!
Jim Mills recent book, Gibson Mastertone: Flathead
5-String Banjos of the 1930's and 1940's has pictures of the RB18 serial
number 744-1 banjo mentioned above. The RB18 owner is an
excellent Craftsman too!
Note: I received the following information from Clarence Hall
of Stuart, VA on 05-11-09 concerning the death of CE Ward on May 7, 2009 as
follows: "Well known mandolin/banjo luthier Clermon Eugene Ward
(CE Ward) died Thursday at his home in Concord, NC at age 70. CE
started out building five-string necks for Gibson tenors in the sixties and
later built complete banjos with his own name on them. He built Sonny
Osborne's six-string (with an extra bass string) in the late sixties, at
Sonny's request. He was also a fine mandolin builder (I've owned three
of them over the years); Jack Lawrence has one, and Doyle Lawson used a Ward
A50 conversion when he played with the Country Gents. I've known him
for over forty years, and he will be greatly missed by
Joe Cline, Center Valley, PA".
Mr. Davis aka "Dave" Kennedy of Athens, West
Virginia who worked for Gibson from 1965 to 1968
in their repair and custom section. Dave is a genius at designing
things and holds a US Patent
4852446 for a banjo two-in-one tone ring and has given
away countless other inventions including a rimless banjo he applied
for a patent in 1963 and sold to Gibson. Dave is a very intellectual man who
taught law, general math, bookkeeping, etc in a several schools in a couple
states. Dave did
contracts/beautification projects for strip coal mining companies and
majored in accounting with a minor in math if I am not mistaken. He was instrumental in providing
technical data and we "horse traded" many of my
banjo inlaid fingerboards
and pegheads for all sorts of things. Dave was the first to build a
wood bending machine to make the "jellyroll" wood rim described
above and I used his "prototype" machine for a few years and some
excellent wood rims were produced from his machine rendering outstanding
sounding banjos! Dave has a 250 acre park called "Highwall
Park" in Bramwell, WVA and host
bluegrass festivals and is open the 2nd Saturday of each month May through
October. Dave Kennedy uncovered a lot of original prewar
stuff "stashed" at the ole Gibson factory and had an original prewar
flathead engraved #6 tone ring that he received from Julius Bellsom of
Gibson who had the tone ring in his desk drawer for many, many years that was
sold/traded to Paul Hopkins of which Curtis McPeake had it at one time or
that is what was related to me anyway. I traded Dave Kennedy out of a 100 lb. sack
of un-plated original pre-war factory flathead tone rings back
in the middle 1970's and traded and/or sold them to Paul Sasser (deceased)
of Pleasant Garden, NC who was one serious banjo trader. Jim Yarboro of Gun
Barrel City, Texas ended up with seventeen (17) of the above tone rings.
Dave had a large wooden shipping crate that contained approximately 300 lbs.
+ - of un-plated original pre-war flathead tone rings when I visited him and
made the trade. No one back then had any idea that type of stuff would
be so valuable today since original Gibson pre-war flathead 5-string banjos could
still be purchased for less than 2K in the early 1970s if you could locate
them and 3K was top dollar indeed!
There have been many questions raised about those un-plated flathead tone
rings over the years as to their actual manufacture date but only time
can put decades of patina on unprotected brass and bronze and everything
else fit the pre-war period, plus they came from a reliable source. It
certainly is possible those rings were early post war production
that had been laying around the ole factory for 25 years or more until
"uncovered" and can't remember the skirt length, thickness, etc. and as
usual there were no unusual markings on the rings. With the many
different sized Gibson pre-war tone rings in usage during the pre-war era,
it would be extremely difficult to authenticate a ring based solely on the
physical size and shape, radius, skirt length, skirt thickness, tone hole
diameter, number of tone holes of an un-plated tone ring. I did
not have a spectrographic analysis taken due to the expense and those rings
were traded/sold as is which wasn't much more than a custom ring at the time
anyway; not like the high dollar clone
rings of today! Also, with the many different bronze alloys in those
Gibson pre-war tone rings, there is a wide margin for human error on this
one! Before I would shell out big bucks for anything that was in
question, there would have to be some serious provenance documented.
I received an email from Bill Hayes of Shapleigh, ME on 01-14-10 concerning
the above tone rings as follows:
"Hi Bill,
I've been on your site a number of times. Great information and good
picture of old Doug Hutchens and Clarence Hall. I met Doug a couple of years
ago and had dinner with him in Stewart VA. Also saw him again and met
Clarence last year at Banjothon. I was particularly interested in the
section that you had about the un-plated prewar flathead rings. Seems like I
have one and it is a corker. This is what little provenance that I
have on the ring from the guy I got it from:
This is the information I received from the family on the tone ring.
Harrison Freeman lived in N.C. and passed away some years ago. He had
a uncle, Herman Bueck that worked at the factory in the prewar years. They
did not know what year he started but do know he was there in the late 30's.
I received the ring you have along with many other prewar parts and banjo's
from the family of Mr. Freeman. The ring you have I personally took to
Curtis McPeake in which he fully authenticated the ring to be prewar. Have
you ever heard of any of those folks Bill? I would have never bought it
except that I hold Curtis in pretty high esteem on the old prewar stuff.
Whatever you know would be appreciated."
Below pix (upper left) taken on July 14, 1976 of Dave Kennedy, his bride
Carol and their son Dwayne at our old home place on White Store Road in
Wadesboro, NC. The other pixs of one of their daughters Cheryl, holding a
couple of his banjos were taken somewhere around that period in Athens, West
Virginia at the Kennedy home. The
Kennedy Stainless Steel banjo in the upper right was awesome looking and
sounding back then.
Note: Dave got the banjo on the upper and lower right pixs back
a couple months ago and is accepting offers for this one of a kind banjo.
The flange is made from 24 individual pieces shaped like an eagle and uses
the standard tube set-up with one of his 3 ply wood rims that does not have
any voids in it. Pixs below:
This instrument is profusely inlaid and Dave started on this banjo in 1969
working on it when he had the chance finishing it in 1976. The
un-plated flathead tone ring is from the same batch of un-plated tone rings
that came from the old Gibson factory that I have referred to above and
other places on this website. However, I failed to mention about most
of those tone rings according to Dave still had remnants of calf skin on
them since they were apparently used on special fixtures used in the manufacturing process to
produce calf skin banjo heads. Dave refreshed my memory about
the tone rings on 06-08-10 and he
had forgotten that I ended up with most of those tone rings until his daughter
Cheryl
had printed the info I have on this website and sent it to him.
Davis aka Dave Kennedy can be reached at 304-384-7484 and cell number
304-961-6185. Dave's mailing address is: Davis E. Kennedy, P. O. Box
1219, Athens, WV 24712. Rob McCoury of White House,
Tennessee currently is playing this banjo. I nicknamed this
banjo the "Devil's Head" due to the inlay on the back of the
resonator.
Pix below of Dave Kennedy, his "bride" Carol and I
believe that is their son Dwayne (or his hands/arms anyway) with his
prototype wood rim bending machine. Dave later built another
full production model that was strong enough to be used as a mini-crane.
Dave stated that Paul Hopkins purchased/traded for the full production machine and the
prototype was purchased by Doug Hutchens and Frank Neat recently obtained
the prototype machine.
The pix to the far right is Bill Porter & HC Morris in
Morocco, Africa 1966 (winter) while in the U.S. Navy stationed about 20 miles inland
from Kenitra at a Receiving Station near Sidi Slimane . HC is
from Cheraw, SC and retired from the US Postal Service. We had
many adventures in Casablanca, Tangier, Rabat, Fez and
Marrakech! I had the opportunity to work with the Manned Spacecraft
Recovery Force TF-140 out of the Naval Air Station at Norfolk, Virginia
specializing in crypto and participated in the Apollo 6
launch on April 4, 1968 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., now called Cape Kennedy
staying a couple weeks at Cocoa Beach, Florida TAD status.
There were many others that supplied technical
information; inlay patterns, drawings, pictures, specifications, etc.,
during my banjo research and development including: Mike Longworth, Paul
Tester, Tom Morgan, Tut Taylor, Randy Wood, Frank Neat, Jim Selman, Harold
Chriscoe, Paul Sasser, Harry West, Bill Gibson, Chuck Erikson, David
Musselwhite, John Monteleone, etc., and Intel was either free or "horse
traded".
I still have a few "open trades", meaning
I sent out parts, inlays, etc. in trade for things that I have yet to
receive but that is part of life and it certainly was not any of the above
mentioned fine people! I can still grin after all those years!
I shared much pre-war banjo information with Bill
Sullivan (deceased) of First Quality Musical Supply when he was first
getting started operating his business out of his home garage and he
certainly did develop an outstanding business.
Don't trust all decals & labels! Made in 1972.
The above reproduction decal cost around .35 cents to have manufactured and
sold them for $ 5.00 each and/or $12.00 per dozen and strictly a business
deal. I never installed one on a wood rim but many banjo builders
purchased them. I certainly wasn't the first one to have them made and
not the last one either. Being more mature, I would not offer such a
decal for sale today since I am sure most ended up on Gibson reproduction
banjos and some outright fakes.
Bill Gibson of Reinholds, Pa back in the early 1970's supplied a black and
white camera ready copy of the above decal. This decal was done long
before the invention of the personal computer and the gold sparkle matched
the original banjo wood rim decal which was photographed. Those that trimmed the
edge of the decal to the black border had a very convincing decal but a
knowledgeable "banjar" trader would not be duped by the
usage of this type of reproduction decal. The
font Gibson used on the decal was artist drawn and not type set or at least
that is what was concluded. There are several ways to distinguish a
"fake" decal versus the original and many internet
threads posted to help anyone interested . One knowledgeable vintage
instrument dealer in Nashville, TN. (mid 1970's) purchased a Gibson banjo
from a private collection in Danville, VA and the banjo was made from
post-war parts and was convincing enough for the buyer to think he had
"stumbled" onto an original RB4 pre-war flathead. The
original peghead inlaid veneer was cut from the original plectrum and/or
tenor neck very
close to the veneer and the original inlays from the fingerboard with the
poplar backing was inlaid Gibson style into a 1/8 inch thick Brazilian
rosewood fingerboard with small mandolin style fret wire onto the new
reproduction
5-string neck. I supplied Bill Gibson with a bunch
of these decals and Paul Tester (deceased) of Landover, Md. purchased the
balance of the decals when I went out of business. I purchased a
Gibson Mastertone RB4 banjo in the late1960's that was a fake with post war
Gibson parts and home made wood rim, Gibson identical resonator construction and tracked
down the craftsman that built it. The same craftsman built the above
referenced Danville, VA RB-4 banjo. Excellent work and sounding banjo
but not the real deal....only 300 bucks back then...grin if you must!
Many craftsman have gone to great lengths building "fake" pre-war Gibson
banjos and some are much harder to distinguish when using original pre-war
pot assemblies but a knowledgeable buyer taking his/her time will spot the
fake. Even the smell and cracked finish of the resonator can be
replicated with ease but many forget about the chisel tool marks on the neck
heel to wood rim fit and a dozen or more other tell tell give
away signs! Very few craftsmen today install a truss rod identical to
the pre-war ones, lower neck lag bolt and it takes the usage of technology to identify the truss
rod configuration buried underneath the fingerboard and maple filler strip.
Also, cut Gibson Mastertone decals on original pre-war banjos is very
difficult to determine if the Gibson factory did the conversion or post war
unless there is documentation on some of Gibson's pre-war shipping ledgers. This
paragraph is "food for thought."
NOTE: I no longer
repair stringed musical
instruments or have any musical parts for sale.
After the recession in 1977 things were a little tight
money wise and decided to sell the mail order business doing so in 1979 and went to
work with the N.C. Department of Correction and still employed with them
today as a Correctional Armory/Officer certified armorer for Smith & Wesson,
Ruger and Remington firearms and Facility Key and Lock Control Officer with 31 years of service as of
January 2010 and looking forward to “retiring” in a few years from the
NCDOC. I have an Advanced Corrections Certificate since 1992, have
been a Firearms Instructor, Unarmed Self-Defense Instructor and General
Instructor off an on for 15 years leaving the instructing now to the younger
folks.
The music business took up most of my time and hunting was at a
premium until the early 1980’s and started turkey and deer hunting again
harvesting a long beard in 1982 using an old Lynch box call. I made a custom
wing bone call that year but can’t remember who I gave it to.
It didn’t take long before I realized there was a
need for a good bow hunting tree stand and started designing a telescopic foot
climber type tree stand and sold tree stands to the public and a few dealers
as early as 1986. I was granted two US Patents
4953662 and
5167298 and sold the business
W.M. Porter, Co., Inc. in 2000 to an
outfit that made aluminum dog boxes. Attached pix of tree stands:
This
pix was taken of the last tree stands that I made before selling all the
tooling and rights to the “Hunter’s Dream” tree stand. It is to my
understanding the company that procured the tooling, etc. was unable to get
adequate product liability and they decided to cease and desist production
of the tree stands. All my production fixtures and jigs were made by
myself and had to contract out a few custom parts for their assembly that
required a larger metal lathe.
Bowhunting is my main hobby since 1979.....a few
pixs of my "archery hole" in one end our basement. Some of the
pixs below were around 2001 and I have since gotten rid of all my recurve
and traditional archery equipment.
Pix to the left of my early custom made telescopic bow
press. I had special tooling made to swedge aluminum arrow shafts to a
six (6) degree taper for the old type insert-less "Snuffer"
and Black Diamond broadheads.
One of my best inventions I "gave" away was
an offset roller cable guard long before the single track
wheel and true cam bow was on the market. I used my invention to
separate the cables on an older wide track round wheel compound bow
providing increased fletch clearance and a much quieter bow by isolating the
cables. I used two small one inch diameter rollers from an ole
Whitetail Hunter model Bear compound bow with an aircraft aluminum
supporting main frame with the majority of the support bar/frame milled away
to reduce the overall weight. It didn't take too long before my invention was on the market
with a few modifications such as adjustability to fit different brace height
bows during the early 1980's. I believe it was about the same time
that Kidd Archery procured Jennings bows to go along with the Bear bow
acquisition. I learned from that mistake for sure!
Don't show or tell about your invention unless you have pertinent
documentation such as a patent pending since you only have a year to file
for a patent once you publicly display your invention.
With some free time on my hands again, I
decided to make another musical instrument and called my good friend Jim
Yarboro in Gun Barrel City, Texas that still had the molds for building a
resophonic aka Dobro guitar that he got from me in 1979 and he shipped them
to me UPS and the fun started. I had sold most of my wood working equipment and had
only a few power hand tools left and this guitar was made by good friends
letting me use critical pieces of equipment such as the band saw, table saw
and jointer, etc. all of which I do have today…another grin is in order.
A few pix of that guitar under construction and Jim Yarboro and his banjo
picking "bride" Carol in 1979.
Pix
of the guitar back with the bracing just hand planed to shape. Most
resophonic guitars (square neck) do not have any bracing but I added it
since this was going to be my personal guitar and might have been just a
little overkill but that is ok too.
Pix
of semi-finished body of guitar with the holes for the sound screens not cut
yet or any bindings added and bending mold and working jigs used to build
the guitar.
Note: Ervin Sloane's mold design.
Inlaid ebony fingerboard with the Flaming Claw mother
of pearl inlays being glued to the curly maple neck blank with a pile of C
clamps. Might be another overkill on the clamps too!
Old style "neck tongue" construction.
Pix
of finished resophonic Dobro guitar with all curly maple neck, back, sides
and top with inlaid ebony fingerboard and peghead. It was finished on Father’s Day in 2000 and has aged
now and sounds great! The little pc microphone doesn't accurately
replicate the bass range of the guitar and the guitar sounds much mellower
"in person".
I'll Be All Smiles Tonight with
Porter & Curtis. Click on links to hear mp3 sound file.
Fireball
Don't grin too big; I hadn't picked on the Reso
in about 25 years and started messing with it a little after I made the
above guitar!
Since I have taken you on a journey, I will finish up
soon. It was some of my turkey hunting buddies that nudged me into
making box calls and they wanted something that would work and also something
different to add to their ever growing box call collection.
Having failed to mention that I worked in electronics
installing and repairing two way radios, base stations and mobile telephones for the
NC Telephone Company
from 1968 until 1972 and switched over to inside equipment working on
Microwave, ITT, Stromberg Carlson, Viacom, Motorola, RCA, GE and
special circuits requiring modems and switching equipment until 1975 at the same time I was running
my musical instrument repair mail order business and attended the local
Community College until 1978 studying business. While working with the
NC Telephone Company I maintained an Amateur Radio Advanced Class "Ham"
license call sign WB4GAN and kept a 300 ft. long wire antenna and
Collins KWM2A transceiver at our radio repair and installation facility to
chat and Morse code with folks all over the world. I was also a member
of the Navy MARS program call sign N0KOU. I still have a
current FCC Commercial Radio Telephone License which collects dust
and guess too much of a good thing (electronics) can burn one out.
With a background in electronics from the US Navy, the Telephone Company,
and CIE graduate, I decided to apply
some techniques used from my music days for testing sound chambers and
experimented for a couple years with different call body shapes and
configurations to come up with my current box call which is called “Dual
Hens” which features a unique and novel sound chamber with a “Torpedo
Nose” inside taper. With the aid of computer audio editing and imaging
programs, I am able to hear and see what the frequency analysis of the sounds
being emitted by my calls and other maker’s calls as well to achieve my goal
of producing an excellent sounding call. Even with technology, it is about
impossible to get two calls to give the same frequency response and timbre
or color due to the
individual characteristics of wood from the same billet or fletch. This is
what makes call making so much fun and exciting and yet stress the brain a
little when something doesn’t work just right when it should!
Calls will however exhibit certain sound characteristics
attributed to the call maker either by design or accidental discovery of
design commonly called (trial and error).
The difference between the sounds from a good
box
call and a great box call can be attributed to the timbre
or color of the sounds emitted which can be described as mellow,
harsh, piercing, raspy, mild, clear, warm, strident, sharp, breathy, flat,
throaty, gutsy, growling, light and heavy of which is very subjective and to some degree
changed by
weather conditions such as humidity and barometric pressure. A box call
will sound much different when played 25 yards or more away from the
listener and the acoustic surroundings such as dense undergrowth, hillside,
valley or an open
field will change the perceived timbre of the call and could sound
nasal, hollow or throaty as well. The
harmonic overtones produced by a box call greatly influence
the timbre or color of the sound transmitted by the call and is difficult to
give a word description but sound recordings and graphs depict what is
taking place. However, such recordings or graphs do not tell you how
to arrive at such a point but merely show the end result! A call's
resonant frequency or pitch can have a beautiful tone, color or timbre yet
be lacking in volume or the ability to project the sound a great distance.
There are a host of variables affecting the acoustic qualities of a box call
but most agree timbre is that component of sound that is most
pleasing to the ear in addition to the calls ability to reproduce the sounds
of the wild turkey.
Timbre is what separates Stradivarius, Amati, Guarneri and Stainer
violins from other violins within the same 18th century period of
construction as does any musical instrument including box calls. There
are many myths such as water logged century old wood reclaimed which
produces that magic sought after sound element timbre but that theory
and myth is as water logged as the logs themselves! Other myths was
the usage of centuries old wood from cathedral timber but carbon dating
of
Stradivarius violins disproved the old wood theory along with a "secret"
varnish used was also disproved by chemical analysis.
Old growth dense wood is
only one element in the equation for great timbre whether it is a
musical instrument or turkey box call. Musical instrument components
along with box call components are adjusted to compensate for the density of the wood
used depending on what type of sound you are opting for. Mass
production call manufacturers are not usually set up to account for wood
density and ever so often a super sounding call will come to light more or
less by chance. Those are the calls that are entered into some of the
call makers contests, however when a call manufacturer has a 1000 calls to
choose from, it is hard to compete using only one single call but it can be
done but the odds are high.
Some call makers are advertising one piece hand hewn
call bodies but if using a drill press or any power tool to remove call body material, that call
in reality is not hand hewn. I would welcome a CNC router or laser of which
I do not have to aid in the quick removal of “waste” material on a call body
but instead use conventional tools such as router, drill press, table saw,
router table, cut off saw, planer, jointer, carving station, sanding stations, palm sanders
and yes hand tools such as chisels, rasps, files, gouges, carving tools,
etc. The inference is that a hand hewn call is superior in
construction and produces a better sound than a call that is machine carved
or routed but is subject to much debate and opinion but
microscopic analysis
of test wood cells and fibers along with audio frequency analysis cannot
support such views.
Machine carvers and routers do impart certain characteristics
to the wood cells that hand tools such as a chisels and knives cannot
accomplish. There is a valid case for musical instruments including box calls that have
the soundboards "stress relieved" in the
construction process
with "special tuning" and component configuration allowing the wood to vibrate or
flex in a controlled predictable manner. This is not a
new technique but centuries old of which the wheel has been
merely re-invented with the aid of modern technology mainly the personal
computer. Many have expressed interest in this "special tuning" and
Roger Siminoff has a book and DVD available detailing
The Art Of Tap Tuning.
Please check this link out
http://www.siminoff.net/parts/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=10_37&products_id=276
to order a copy of his book and DVD. The beauty part about a turkey
box call when using a tap tuning type procedure, you have the advantage of
exciting the soundboards with the box call lid instead of a separate
tuning hammer and the sustain is much longer without needing a compressor to
retain the tone generated when sending to audio imaging/editing software or
a strobe tuner.
I use a different audio editing program than Roger but his recommendation
and usage of Peterson strobe tuners is top of the line indeed as all the musical
products and accessories that he manufacturers and sells. Roger
Siminoff is the guru when it comes to the lost art of tap
tuning different musical instrument components! Most current factories
do not use tap tuning procedures because it is time consuming and time is
money!
NOTE: No laminated
or glued-up calls available! Call base is integral part of the call body and
not glued in place.
Pix of my field grade “Dual Hens” model call
with inlaid # 4 wood purfling and Eagle medallion.
Click on turkey icon to hear sound file.
Call available in Butternut, Black Walnut, Sassafras,
Mahogany and Poplar with cedar lid.
Pix of one of my North Carolina “Limited Edition”
Custom Deluxe calls:
Click on turkey icon to hear sound file.
Eastern Red Cedar lid inlaid with Mother of Pearl Dogwood
blossom with Green Abalone Pearl center and the North Carolina State outline
is done in Red Abalone Pearl with strutting turkey in Green Abalone Pearl
with etching/engraving for feather detail.
Check out the Products section and look under
Shop Pixs for custom inlays designs on the drawing board.
My one piece carved box call bodies are roughed out and
allowed to acclimate or age for about a year before any final tuning. I
keep a good supply of various woods on hand in this pre-tuned condition. I
personally believe it makes a difference in the final sound of the call and
most calls do get better with age! The delivery time of my field grade
call is around two to four months and there is a current back log of one to
two years for a custom deluxe call depending on how much inlay you
desire. Calls are first sealed with sanding sealer and a coat of satin
lacquer applied. I have found the less finish applied, the call has
more
response, sensitivity, volume, tone and timbre with all things being equally
compared to a non-finished call. The inside of the
torpedo nose tapered sound chamber has very little finish only a
light coat of sealer which for the most part is scraped or sanded away at
critical areas affecting the call's resonance.
Pix of calls allowed to acclimate or age before any final tuning, etc.
and end view of my one piece carved call body calls.
This procedure is very time consuming and costly up front but the end
result is worth it. Most of the time, "You get what you pay for".
The far right pix of a few well known custom call makers calls used in my
Research and Development although I do not make a long box or fence post
type call.
My standard Field Grade “Dual Hens” call is
$200.00 plus 10.00 shipping. Money back guarantee (less shipping
charges) if not satisfied provided call is returned prepaid and in undamaged
condition.
The North Carolina “Limited Edition” Custom Deluxe
call pictured above start at $500.00 which requires a $50.00 non-refundable
deposit. Prices and delivery time subject to change without notice.
CONTACT:
contact@portercalls.com
Recent pix of Bill Porter drilling a hole into a box call lid for the
installation of standard Eagle medallion and laying out a custom mother of
pearl inlay pattern. It has been many years since doing any serious
custom inlay work but it is like riding a bicycle, it is coming back
quickly.
Pix of my bride and myself taken on May 2, 2008 in San
Diego, California attending our son's retirement ceremony from the US Navy.
The date on the camera is a couple years behind....grin if you must and pix
of our 37th wedding anniversary taken in 2005 and one taken on January 22,
1978 and a few other pixs. Time waits on no one!
My bride Joyce aka “Tweet” has put up with a lot of my
mess (hobbies & businesses) from our home the past 42 years which seems like
only yesterday we were married. She is the love of my life, my best
friend and been by my side supporting me in all my endeavors and an
excellent crafts person and artist!
Praise be to God for his many
blessings through out our lives through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!
Two of the greatest ships that ever sailed:
Friendship and Fellowship!
Mickey and Joyce Porter 06-13-09.
