c.1920 Washburn Style 763 Banjo Ukulele

This one's a special fellow -- it's the only one I've ever seen. This is a Lyon & Healy Washburn (their top-of-the-line brand) banjo uke from around c.1920-1925. It has a neck and pot exterior of nyssa (tupelo/black gum) wood, with a couple laminations of the pot on the inside from hard maple. The tensioning for the head is all internal on this model, sort of like the reverse of a normal banjo head tensioner style.

I've had to improvise on this instrument as the original pot-metal tonering/tension hoop was cracked, broken, expanded, and unusable. It actually split the rim as it expanded at the neck-join for the rim, so I had to repair that as well as replace the tonering... which I've done using gas or water-line copper tubing... which gave it about identical weight as the original, and a nice sweet, poppy sound. I like.

Cool headstock, ebony nut.

Nickel-silver frets with black celluloid position dots. Finish is in really good shape all over.

Rim detail, with rim caps of nyssa, too. Simple tailpiece... new Grover bridge with a cherry topper added.

New Grover ebony & maple bridge... with a cherry topper to increase height. There wasn't a standard bridge in my bin (and they don't make a standard bridge) that'd fit this height.

Back.

New Grover uke pegs.

Good heel join.

Here you can see the tensioning style: screws push up on the copper tonering/tension hoop which pushes up against the head and pulls the skin against the flesh hoop... works nice, looks cool, keeps hooks off of your belly/chest while playing, and is actually much lighter-weight than the usual system.

Note: I've installed a couple of new screws off to the sides of the original two neck-mount screws, because I was worried that someone in the future might tension the two old screws (on the seam of the rim) too much and split the rim. This gives a good, strong neck join... and judging by the build, you could probably put steel strings on this fellow, or mando strings, for that matter, if you're a GDAE fellow.

Side.


Detail. Really a nicely crafted uke.


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Tailpiece is simple and functional.