Seeders Banjo #009 – Daffodil Piccolo

Another Cherry and Walnut 5-String Piccolo Banjo with some special appointments. I made this piccolo for my lovely girlfriend, Ashley, and to have as a demo model to show people the size and great sound of these little banjos. When designing the piccolo, I asked her what she wanted for inlays and she requested her favorite flower, the daffodil. I had a brainstorm and thought, “Why don’t I make the daffodils growing out of the pot?” That’s where the long stem of the daffodils as the fretboard inlay came from. I used a marquetry technique inlaying pieces of wood instead of pearl or abalone, and lightly burned the pieces in heated sand to give them a nice shaded detail, making them more pronounced as individual pieces.

Not too long ago, I built a table with my father with a bit of carving, so while making the neck I decided to finally do some carving on one of my banjos (also, making it for someone special I wanted to make the banjo extra special and unique). I carved a simple, small daffodil on the back of the peghead as well as an ogee curve on the fifth string transition. I was planning on doing some more daffodils on the neck heel but wanted to keep it somewhat simple and not go overboard with the design. The sound is lovely and soft but punchy, with good volume for a little piccolo. I love the combination of the goat skin head and nylon strings on these little banjos. It plays much softer and tends to mellow the high sound of them quite a bit (although they do have a wonderful sound with steel strings and a synthetic head as well).

• 8″ Pot
• 18″ Scale Length
• Walnut Tone Ring
• 1 1/4″ nut
• Hard Oil Hand Rubbed Finish
• Antiqued Bill Rickard S.S. Stewart Style Hardware
• Small Shaft Raw Brass Tuners With Amber Knobs From Bob Smakula
• Seeders Cherry Bridge
• Hidden Fret Ends
• Goat Skin Head
• Nylon Strings
• Daffodil and Ogee Curve Neck Carving
• Seeders Pyramid Heel