A Labor of Love

On this rainy 2011 Labor Day, it has been decided to post a little about what kind of labor goes into the designing and building of canjo instruments. The CanJoe Company is the sole pioneer of the custom canjo instrument market and began custom designing & building instruments as functional musical works of art from the company’s origin in 1994. The demand for extreme quality by those who appreciate and desire the best has provided many very extreme one-of-a-kind instruments to have become “dreamed up” and produced by CanJoe*John. For example, the Kingsport, TN Bays Mountain chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation has ‘canmissioned’ CanJoe*John to create, design and build four instruments over the past four years. A lot of thought and painstaking labor (of love) has gone into each finished custom instrument and the effort has always paid off by the nice, high rewards the chapter has benefited by the prices these instruments have gained at the annual banquet auctions. These truly fine works of music instrument art have never failed to draw very high bids and great appreciation by those attending these auctions for their beauty and quality of the craftsmanship of these fine canjo instruments. Upon accepting the commission to design and create these instruments, CanJoe*John often takes months of thought and effort collecting materials and ideas to build from. The model built for the 2011 event is an example in case. Deciding on a theme idea for this year’s model was to make this canjo resemble a turkey hunter’s dream rifle, with built in turkey calls along with music from the can, all-in-one. After 6 weeks of shop time and many, many hours of physical labor by CanJoe*John on this project, from beginning to end, this hand made creation as a beautiful finished work of art paid off generously as a gorgeous finished item of art. First, a gun stock was needed so CanJoe*John found an old broken pellet rifle that had a wood stock on it. The stock was removed, sanded down and made ready. The “barrel” (aka finger board) for the instrument was devised by ripping a fine board of wormy chestnut then laminating the two pieces together and upon selection of a beautiful piece of curly maple, all then laminated together as the instrument’s neck and finger board. The stock needed to be seamlessly fitted and the metal grip from the original rifle could not be made to work so CanJoe*John traced the grip dimensions and hand cut the exact shape from a block of beautiful Honduran mahogany wood, hand making all the parts fittings as being carved from and into the finished wood grip. After assembling, mounting, gluing and finish shaping the whole ‘rifle’ together, the frets positions were accurately calculated & measured for, marked and then before being cut, the brass NWTF logo inlay provided was then physically inlaid into the finger board (there was a total of five round or rectangular brass NWTF logos inlaid into the instrument); then the wire frets were cut, placed and secured into the finger board and the whole assembly then hand sanded to the final shape and smooth texture. Then the ancillary items (turkey calls) needed mounting. The expertise woodworking skills of CanJoe Company’s, Jack Bradshaw were then harnessed as Jack designed and hand crafted unique wood items to allow the attachment of the butt stock mounted Toy Simpson custom box turkey call. After all the unfinished parts were then finally and fully assembled, some additional custom workmanship requiring four hands and two minds again brought Jack into the works where the mounting of the Tony Simpson box scratch call and the NWTF scratch stick needed to be attached. With their ‘canbined’ skills, CanJoe*John and Jack now had the instrument near completion. The instrument was then taken back to the CanJoe Company shop and was painstakingly and detailed hand stained, brush finished with a satin clear lacquer, the selected camouflage designer “RealTree” can cut and mounted, the string, tuner key and other hardware placed and the instrument as finished was signed, dated and ready for delivery. The 2011 banquet had around 250 attending and all those who viewed this canjo instrument were literally in awe of the uniquely beautiful craftsmanship. The bidding on this instrument was, as in previous years, hot and heavy, and the final bid for the NWTF 2011 custom “Turkey Rifle” model canjo instrument sold to the highest bidder at $575. For More inormation on how to order a authentic, original CanJoe Company instrument, please call 423-323-0174.
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