2019 Deering Solana Six Nylon-Strung Guitar-Banjo

A modern, nylon-strung, 6-string banjitar! How about that? I've worked on a few antique 6-string, gut-stringers but this is the first modern one I've played. It's great -- it has that old-time style and sound but a rugged, functional, easy-to-maintain design mixed with a classical-guitarist-friendly neck profile and shape.

Just like other Deering Goodtime products, this has a simple, multi-ply maple rim and spare, all-maple neck design. It has a single coordinator rod setup so action is easily adjustable on-the-fly via the lower rod setup, though it was basically spot-on when it got here.

Extra bonuses include a pickup pre-installed and a cool, rosewood-topped, downpressure-style tailpiece. The bridge design (with its wide foot) is interesting and serves to mellow out the sound as far as I can tell. I've done similar things (by increasing mass or width in guitar banjo bridges) to keep them from sounding too "woofy" or "overdriven" when using a normal bridge design.

During setup I damped the head slightly with some foam stuffed both under the armrest (to keep it from rattling) and also under the tailpiece (to roll-off just a hair of extra overtone harshness and high-end ping).

Repairs included: setup and adjustments.

Rim wood: maple ply

Bridge: rosewood base, maple/ebony

Fretboard: maple

Neck wood: maple

Action height at 12th fret: 3/32" overall (standard classical)
String gauges: medium tension nylon

Neck shape: medium C

Board radius: flat

Truss rod: non-adjustable

Neck relief: straight

Fret style: medium-wide

Scale length: 26 1/8"

Nut width: 2 1/16"

Head diameter: 12"

Depth overall at rim: 2 3/4"

Weight: 5 lbs 0 oz

Condition notes: it's very clean save minor usewear/playwear on the head and strings that are older and tarnished on the bass side.

It comes with: its original gigbag.