| Chuck
Lee of Lee
Banjo hosted
our June meeting at his shop in Ovilla, Texas. He builds open back
banjos with distinctive
laminated necks and custom inlay work. Chuck gave us a tour of
his nicely outfitted facility. He is shown here
with
a
bank
of
inexpensive
drill presses,
each set up to perform a specific boring or shaping operation,
a real time saver as each setup take hours to get just right. |
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| His
current production goal is five instruments a week and he is fortunate
to have purchasing agreements for 100% of his output. His
instruments are available exclusively from Elderly
Instruments and
Zepp Country Music, Inc. |
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Many
of Chucks' banjos feature custom inlay work. Here he is demonstrating
his pearl cutting setup. Note the PVC fixture that connects
to his dust collection system. It has suction from both the
top and bottom of the cutting table to remove potentially toxic
pearl and stone dust.
He
shared with us
two
important
suppliers
for inlay materials and tools. Drillbit
City for re-sharpened
precision carbide end mills and Masecraft
Supply Company for reconstituted stone.
No web site for Masecraft the above link is to e-mail requests
for catalogs.
<<<
Click photo on left for an example of his fine work
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| Chucks'
family
members are all accomplished musicians . His son,
Nate favored us with a performance on his Red
Diamond Mandolin.
Nate plays fiddle and mandolin for the Mark
Gorman Band, which will be opening for Willie Nelson
in October at Beaumont Ranch in Grandview. |
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Member,
Jim Whelan offered several fine tone wood sets in the swap
meet. Check our swap
page soon for details.
Mike Daugherty
showed us a good looking flamenco guitar that he got on e-bay
for a remarkably low price. Good quality instruments like these
make it very hard for one of a kind builders to compete. |
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Chris
Jenkins showed two instruments in progress that he is building
for the Healsburg
Guitar Festival in August.
Each will
feature his "heelless" bolt on neck that can be reset with
the guitar
strung up. Look for an article soon on this innovative design. |
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| Finally,
the meeting concluded with a demonstration of Chris's variation
on the parallelogram binding machine. His is fully articulated
in both the horizontal and vertical plane. Note the use of an
LMI style vertical binding machine as the mounting base. This provides
even more range of movement to the system. |
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