Vertical sides banjo tone ring and methods
AssigneeDeering Banjo Company, Inc.
InventorsCharles Greg Deering, Jens H. Kruger, Philip Zanon
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Abstract
The present invention is a banjo tone ring with vertical sides (30) as opposed to the angled design of conventional banjo tone rings (120). The ring (30) of the present invention has specific height (h) to width (w) or thickness ratios and is within specific weight ranges for improved performance It vibrates much freer and thus raises the quality of musical tones from the banjo (10) to much higher aesthetic levels. Other embodiments also modify the musical tones for different sounds. Several novel embodiments of manufacturing methods are also described.
Claims23
A banjo tone ring (30) comprised of:
- a continuous circular ring of metal, wherein said ring has vertical sides.
A method of manufacturing a vertical sides tone ring (30), wherein said method preferably comprises the steps of:
- obtaining a suitable off the shelf bar stock material,
- measuring said bar stock to a desired length and width of an outside
- diameter and height (h) of said tone ring (30),
- cutting said bar stock to an approximate desired length and height (h),
- rolling said bar stock into a circular form,
- re-measuring said circular form for accurate diameter and height (h),
- machining said form to tolerance of preferred diameter and height (h),
- butt welding two opposing ends of said form into a one piece ring, and
- polishing said form into said vertical sides tone ring (30), thereby providing a quick efficient fabrication of said tone ring (30), in-house on simple equipment with minimal waste.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.