Wyatt Fawley who resides in Greensboro, Pennsylvania is a well known builder of quality reproduction necks
for Vega and other early Boston banjo conversions and restorations. His reproductions include beautiful and well
executed hand cut and engraved inlays of equal to or better quality than the best of the golden era of the banjo inlays.
Here is an interview with Wyatt in his shop June 30, 2004 about his latest banjo building endeavor, a line of bluegrass
banjos.
DLT - A lot of people know you as a builder of old time
reproduction banjo necks for conversions and for your beautiful
inlay engravings, but you are a bluegrass banjo picker.
W.F. - That's how I got started. I was sixteen and I wanted a
Banjo the caliber of a Gibson Mastertone. I worked at a car wash
and made $1.65 an hour. There were no Gibson Mastertones in my
immediate future. I had Earl Scruggs's book and right there in the
back it showed you how to build a banjo neck, so I just decided to
build my own neck. I got a saga banjo pot that had the neck snapped
on it. I paid forty dollars for it at a music shop. I built a neck for it
and got everything from Elderly. The first inlays I didn't cut with a
saw, I ground them with a drum sander. I breathed enough pearl dust
from that first banjo that I should have silicosis today.
The banjo turned out pretty good, nothing like what would come
later, but encouraging. I got a lot of encouragement from some other
people. Then for the first fifteen years, I built only about fifteen necks.
In 1992, we decided to do this full time. It started out slowly, but I know last year we did 85 un.nished necks.
DLT - Why did you start building Vega conversation necks for the old time pickers?
W.F. - I needed something that paid a little better than the bluegrass necks, because there wasn't enough
money in that to keep the bills paid and food on the table. I was fortunate in that there was a lady near here that had
one of each of the Old Vega designs. Once I saw those I decided that they were beautiful and .gured they had to be
worth more money. So I started looking around and found out that indeed they were worth more money. I decided
then that I would make those. I bought two engraving tools, still the
tools I use today, and taught myself how to engrave.
That.s how I got started in the Vega stuff. It looked like a better
revenue source. To this day I can't play a lick of clawhammer. I still
pick three-finger and we still build a lot of Vega style reproduction
necks.
DLT - You have now begun building your own bluegrass
banjos, the Retrotone. What made you want to get back into the
bluegrass market?
W.F. - Back when I was still building a lot of bluegrass necks, I had a friend who wanted a neck built for
and older Gibson TB-X and he wanted to trade me an old bow-tie pot he had for the neck. I allowed him $150.00
for it because I figured it was just and old bow-tie pot and I could buy something comparable from Bill Sullivan
for $150.00. It turned out that it was an older bow-tie pot with a Faulkner tone ring. The Maple in that rim was so
soft that the washers for the coordinator rods were sucked
in absolutely flush. The Faulkner ring is about 6 ounces
heavier than a standard Gibson tone ring with a sharper
head bearing so you have a wider vibrating area. That
combination just works to produce a really deep tone that
projects well. That pot has been the basis for what I think
I've learned about the bluegrass banjo. I've been able to
replicate the tonal qualities of that pot. I think that the
harder woods is better theory doesn't work.
DLT - So you decided to build the Retrotone to
prove your theory?
W.F. - Yes, the thing with the Retrotone like the
banjo the Retrotone is modeled after is that it sounds like
Scruggs.s banjo without going to the studio and having
to add reverb. It does it acoustically. The projection is off
the scale. You can hear the banjo as well when you are
standing behind it as when you are in front of it. That.s
something you don't get with any banjo. So, I decided it
was time that it became available.
DLT - What did you do to make the Retrotone
happen?
W.F. - Our rims are made of soft red maple
assembled with hide glue with the joints in the pre-war
locations. We're using a copy of the Faulkner tone ring, made for us by Rick Kulesh.
DLT - What is so important about getting the joints in the prewar locations?
W.F. - I think if its not broke, don't fix it. I think Gibson did that right; you've always got a mechanical device
over the joints. There are two joints at the
neck end of the ring and one joint at the tailpiece end. Those coordinator rods are
designed to flex the rim. If you make a rim in the modern fashion with the joints 120 degrees apart and pay no
attention to where you drill the holes, then there is no way you get equal stresses on either side of the rim. Gibson
had a patent on their three-ply rim and I think they put some thought into it. It wasn't just a matter of, well we think
the glue joints will fail, so lets put a mechanical device over the joints. It had to do with equalizing the stresses as you
flex the rim and adjust the action with the coordinator rods. Now the modern thinking is 120 is right and nobody
uses coordinator rods anyway. If you want to know how to use coordinator rods get a copy of Roger Siminoff.s
book and it will show you how to use them. When a banjo needs its action adjusted in the field, that is the purpose
of the coordinator rods. They can be used for minor adjustments up to 1/16 of an inch. I also think the two heavier
glue joints at the neck helps to transmit more vibration to the neck.
DLT - Do you think that vibrations in the neck are important to the sound?
W.F. - Absolutely, I think the most important vibration that is set up in the banjo goes into the skirt which
excites the rim and passes into the neck. The skirt is the outer thin part of the tone ring. I also think that is why the
sharper head bearing works so well by providing the larger vibrating area. The typical Mastertone has a 10 5/8"
diameter vibrating area while the Retrotone has almost 11" or about six square inches more vibrating area on the
head. Some would consider my ideas unconventional.
DLT - But it seems to me you are trying to achieve a conventional or traditional sound:
W.F. - Right, but it is not available on a consistent basis using the original recipe. I guess we make it extra
crispy. It's more easily achieved with the larger vibrating area. A larger drum is lower pitched than a smaller
drum.
DLT - So, from that I assume you are trying to build a banjo with tonal qualities similar to a pre-war
Gibson?
W.F. - Actually, my target is the tonal quality of a post war Gibson.
DLT - What era?
W.F. - From the late forties through the middle fifties. Those banjos do use the softer rims. Most of the truly
great conversion banjos that I have done in terms of tone and projections were not pre-war Mastertones but later
low end models.
DLT - How much will these banjos cost?
W.F. - Our standard 75 banjo will cost $1,875.00 and our most expensive model with gold plating and
engraved metal parts will be $3,150.00.
DLT - So these banjos, are priced below quality banjos by some well known manufacturers.
W.F. - I think well under and you get more banjo for your buck. There is something to be said for owning a
banjo made by one or two sets of hands rather than forty.
DLT - You actually make the necks.
W.F. - We make the necks from raw lumber and use the old style truss rod system with a single rod. I believe
you need the mass of the old style truss rods to avoid the tuning fork effect of the modern truss rod. We also hand
cut all the inlays.
DLT - When will you have this banjo in production?
W.F. - We are making the banjos now. There will be limited production because the banjos are not mass
produced. We currently have a waiting list. No down payment is required. If your name comes up and it.s not a
convenient time for you we.ll just move on down the list.
You may visit Wyatt's website at http://www.thebanjoloft.com . Here are two .les, recorded on the same device and
at the same levels, that partially reflect the latitude of tonal response achievable with the retrotone. The set up of the
banjo on the second mp3 is considerably softer (head relaxed) than on the first mp3. Julio Boysenberry provides the
pickin: http://www.thebanjoloft.com/RetrovsPre-war.mp3, http://www.thebanjoloft.com/4LC.mp3 .
For comments about this article or to suggest future topics or interviews for banjosessions.com please contact Lee
Thomas at : DLThom31@yahoo.com.
