A Pair of Slingerland Nite Hawk Tenor Banjos

[Dave Fox]

Hi All,

 

  I just completed a restoration of an old Slingerland Nite Hawk tenor banjo for a customer.  Funny thing is, that I have a Nite Hawk pot assembly that I picked up several years back at an auction.  Someone had attached a generica Kay tenor neck to it, so I got it for a really nice price (nice that people didn't recognize the pot assembly!!!!)  Anyway, I've been searching for a neck (which I did eventually find), and earlier this year a customer came in with a Nite Hawk that needed extensive work.  He couldn't find anyone that was familiar with it, nor worked on banjos to begin with.

 

  Long story short....here's the short-neck tenor that he brought in, next to the plectrum tenor version that I have (but have not completed yet).  I am delivering his to him in about three hours.  thought y'all might like to see it.

 

Dave Fox

Hog Fiddles and Such

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[Tim Mace]

are top and bottom of shortscale 2 different types of metal or is that an image glitch? Nice anyway!!

[Dave Fox]

Hi Tim,

Thanks. Not sure what you mean, though, as far as different metals on the top and bottom. I did go back to look at the pic again, and the only thing that I can see would be the reflections from left/right. If that's what you're looking at, the 'silvery' color is due to the flash of the camera, and the 'gold-y' color is reflection from the ceiling light and the window that was to the right of where I took the pic.

Does that answer the question?

Dave Fox

[Tim Mace]

dat's it thankx

[Dave Fox]

:)

Dave

[Kerry Krishna]

Two beautiful axes. Thanks so much for posting these pics. Made my day so far!

[Grahame Myers]

Wow, it's never too late to learn something new: Until I saw this post, I thought Slingerland only made drums. Another of the countless makes of instruments that never made it over the pond to Europe :-)

Grahame

[Dave Fox]

I believe that Slingerland was originally a banjo, guitar (and possibly mandolin?) company in the early 20's and added drums to the production list around 1926. Eventually, due to decreased sales in the stringed instrument dept, along with good sales success in the drums dept, they dropped the strings all together and focused on the percussion. I'm sure there are others who know a lot more about the company than I do.

Dave Fox