A quality homemade open back banjo

This banjo was designed to be played, AND to look good.
I made two like this one, one for myself and one for my wife. All of the pictures here are from hers. She is a southpaw (left-handed) so the banjo is a mirror image - it makes no difference to building.
Unfortunately I may never get the chance to finish it completely, the moment it was strung up for the first time it was whipped away. I can hear her out in the garden at the moment playing 'Old Joe Clake'.

The banjo makes use of a co-ordinator rod to support the pot (body ring) and the neck is held on by two bolts, giving the banjo a much more 'traditional' appearance.
One unusual feature is the violin-style scroll head and ebony tuning pegs. Several reasons for this choice:- I like the appearance and fancied the challenge of carving a scroll, more importantly, it means I didn't have to pay out for expensive hardware. Everything on this banjo is homemade, nothing bought except raw materials.
Instead of buying parts, I spend all my money on tools. In this project I used both metal and wood turning lathes (although you could manage without - it just makes life easier)

What makes this banjo so much better than the first is the design of the head. The head skin, tone ring and tension ring are all vastly improved.
The mylar head is formed as a 'top-hat' shape. The tone and tension rings are made from 1/2 inch by 1/8 inch strip alluminium making them very rigid and allowing much higher tension to be applied to the head. That improves the tone significantly.