Sha-banjo!

I came across Doc's Banjos a while back, but it didn't grab me at the time. Recently I rediscovered the site, and now it is grabbing me. This guy's got tons of cool innovations and wood choices. He buys African woods while there on humanitarian trips, brings it home, and matches it with domestic woods for tone, structure, and very artful color contrast.

Doc's gallery and the detail pages are crawling with cool ideas and great photos. Here are a few.

I would not be excited about working white ash or wenge, but that combo is sharp enough to tempt me, especially under that massive Honduran Rosewood tone ring. White ash is also the best way for a banjo neck to double as a baseball bat. Doc's arm rest is killer, and his brass patina is perfect. I just have one question: with all the cool work on every aspect of these banjos, why the simple metal coordinator rod?

I think the amazing swirly grain is bubinga. No clue what the light stripe is, but I like it.

Moabi blanc (African pearwood?) and black walnut:

Crabapple and cocobolo. Crabapple for tone wood? Who knew, but it looks cool!

This sculpted rim is so cool. Thick on the ends for strength, thin in the middle for tone. I thought about this once but discarded the idea because I had no idea how to build it. Apparently someone figured out how. (Also, rug padding makes a surprisingly reasonably backdrop.) He has another interesting custom rim design, as well. I may be inspired to make my tone ring extend thicker than the rest of the rim for additional strength. The extended rim cap thickness would have to come another day since it won't work with my brackets.

Speaking of sculpting, some of the curves are a bit much for my taste:

(Photos from docsbanjos.com)