About 30 miles southwest of Champaign, IL, and alongside the Kaskaskia River, is an area known as Chickenbristle. Chickenbristle Woodworks is a local shop there in rural Douglas County. Most parts of these instruments were individually hand crafted by a group of friends and music-lvoers trying to put together the finest playing banjos they could make. These banjos are built with the best quality parts from manufacturers such as Deering, Remo, Gotoh, LMI, etc.

Bob made the wooden parts mostly from trees that grew on his property. The black walnut tree was felled and milled in 2010, then air-dried in his woodshed until 2021-along with the homegrown osage orange, maple, and cherry. The cherry tree grew right next to the Kaskaskia river, and had been one of his favorite climbing trees when it was still growing. Bob has been playing banjos for more than 50 years, and building various musical instruments (with help from friends) for more than 30 years. Ed contributed to the planning and designing of these openback banjos, along with doing a lot of brass drilling and tapping. The final sanding, fret dressing, finishing, assembly and setup are Ed's expertise. Scotty jumped on board and volunteered to shape and polish all those brass banjo shoes.

This is a BRAND NEW, HANDMADE banjo built by local builders in the CU area. If you have any questions please feel free to send us a message, visit us in-store, or give us a call at (217) 607-8132.


SPECS:

• Solid brass rolled tone ring
• High quality Gotoh planetary tuning machines and geared 5th string tuner
• Remo Renaissance 11" banjo head
• Notched brass handmade tension hoop
• 23 nickel plated steel tension hooks with 5/16" 
• Solid brass handmade banjo shoes with stainless steel buttonhead screws
• Vega-style nickel plated brass armrest
• Kerchner tailpiece - nickel plated
• Royal Blackwood fingerboard - 24" scale
• Hard Alloy "EVO Gold" frets:
  • 22 frets plus a "zero fret" (non scooped neck) or
  • 17 frets plus a "zero fret" (neck with a frailing scoop)
• Fingerboard inlays
  • mother of pearl - fret 5,12,17
  • turquoise - fret 3,7,10,15
  • side dot position inlays
• Bone Nut
• German-made 3-leg banjo bridge - maple and ebony
• "Chickenbristle Crescent Moon" Abalone and Blackwood Peghead Inlay
• Hand-Carved black walnut neck with center laminations
  • cherry/osage orange/cherry
• Two-way adjustable and removable truss rod
• Easy-adjust neck design with neck extension through the rim to the tail
• 5-ply solid walnut rum w/ osage orange rim cap
• Osage orange heel cap
• Natural clear satin poly finish (only lemon oil on fingerboard)
• Hardshell Openback Banjo Case