6/7/2016 Interview with Chuck Ogsbury of Ome Banjos

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Interview with ChuckOgsbury of Ome

Banjos

Home   Blog   Interview with Chuck Ogsbury of Ome

Banjos

May 04, 2016

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Ome Banjos

We had the chance to sit down with Chuck Ogsbury, the

founder of Ode banjos and Ome banjos recently. We discussed

the history of the Ome banjo company, some of his banjo

building beliefs, how he goes about designing new

instruments, and more. Chuck Ogsbury is a living treasure in

the banjo community and has been building great banjos since

the late 1950s. 

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6/7/2016 Interview with Chuck Ogsbury of Ome Banjos

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When did you first start

making instruments?

I was going to college

here in Boulder

(Colorado) for

engineering and got

interested in my last

year there in folk music.

I grew up in Kentucky

so I grew up with a lot

of bluegrass and old

time music back there.

What part of Kentucky?

Louisville

I actually started playing guitar when I was 16 back there, but I

didn’t have a good teacher and had a lousy instrument, so I

didn’t go very far.

When I got into college, it was the late ‘50s - I was actually

walking through the area between the Engineering building

and the student union and heard this incredible music in this

little area where the mountain climbers hung out in, and it

turned out to be some guy playing the banjo and Judy Collins

playing the guitar - she was going to school there then. It kind

of blew me away, so I started getting involved with people who

played folk music back then. It was you know, the late ‘50s, the

Weavers at Carnegie Hall album blew me away like a lot of

people in my generation.

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So I started getting

back into playing

guitar and then

ended up getting

into the banjo. I

found some old

timers around here

who played

instruments. And

then I started

picking up these old

banjos, guitars, and

mandolins in the

junk shops in the

Denver/Boulder

area here, and

fixing them up and

selling them to my

student buddies and giving them a couple lessons.

Anyway… instruments were not easy to find here in the West

compared to the East Coast. There was a lot more older music

culture going on, and a lot of banjo shops around like the

Boston/Philadelphia area and what not.

How did you know how to fix up these  instruments?

I just kind of taught myself. My mother was in the antique

business and I grew up around a lot of fine wood and metal

working. I got into trading antique firearms when I was 12

years old. By the time I was a teenager I was a pretty

significant dealer in antique firearms there.  I’d fix up a lot of

old Civil War and late 19th century weapons. To me they’re

kind of like art forms in wood and metal actually. Of course a

lot of banjo guys also like antique firearms. They’re really

similar, they just do totally different things. I kind of call it a

common denominator - an art form in wood and metal. So I

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had some experience working with wood and metal and just

applied that to musical instruments. I didn’t really know what I

was doing too much.

And then - instruments were hard to find and I was still in

school, and I just had this flash one day of making banjos with

an aluminum pot. So I had a friend who was a machinist in the

physics department at CU (University of Colorado Boulder) and

we had a prototype sand cast pot made up, and I stuck what I

think was a Kay banjo neck on it, and when we put it together

it sounded really good, so I just decided - “Wow, this sounds so

good” and … at the time it was really hard to find old, you

know, vintage instruments, and at the time the long neck 5-

string was coming into vogue. I actually bought one - a used

Vega longneck. I looked at it all over and I thought it was

lacking - actually the fret spacing was not correct. It had some

of the frets closer to the head were slightly larger spacing than

the one above it, this sort of thing - it just wasn’t made that

well. I thought “Wow, I can make a better instrument than this

for less money!” So anyway, I decided to make 100 of these

things.

That’s a lot of em!

Yeah… I don’t know why I did that! Anyway, I had kind of an

antique gun collection, I sold all of that and it financed my

banjo project.

I met an old woodworker, a Swedish woodworker - he must of

been pushing 80. He taught me a lot about woodworking. We

made the necks in his shop. That was the first 100 banjos. They

were all long necks and they sold for 70 bucks.

What kind of pot was it?

Sand cast aluminum. Just 11”, sand cast aluminum. It was

pretty simple. Totally simple. So it was pretty inexpensive to

make and especially for the price, they sounded really well.

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How did you get the pot cast? You went to a foundry?

There was a foundry up the road that sand cast aluminum and

bronze.  So, you make a pattern out of wood and they would

make the castings. And actually, we didn’t even turn them

down on a machine. They were polished on a belt polisher. We

didn’t even have to finish them.  They had the silver look. They

looked like an old banjo you know. And they sounded decent

and the price was right.

And then I actually made a run of cases - hardshell cases out

of plywood and solid wood sides. 25 bucks a piece I was

getting for those. I probably lost money on each one of those.

What was the brand name on these?

Ode. Ode banjos.

See All Of Our Ome Banjos For Sale

So that was the beginning of the Ode banjo company?

Yup.

To tell you the truth, I don’t ever remember thinking “Oh, this is

gonna be a business.” I just didn’t think that way. It was just

something I wanted to do, and then as fast I could put those

darn things together, people would come by and buy - all word

of mouth. So I thought “Wow, there must be something to

this.” So the next batch I ran some standard length necks - 5

strings. And then I moved into 4 string banjos and then 6 string

banjos.

Were these resonator banjos?

I can’t remember the exact progression. I know that right after

the long necks I did a standard length 5 string.

So basically, you just taught yourself? You weren’t an

apprentice to somebody?

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Well, at this point it was all self learning as far as the banjo

part goes. The 70 or 80 year old Swedish woodworker taught

me a lot about the woodworking part and my physicists and

machinists in the physics department helped me with the

metal parts. So I got that going and just kind of winged it for

the next 2 or 3 years. There were a number of people around

here (in Boulder), there was a guy named Al Campton who

played banjo since the ‘20s. I learned a lot about instruments

from him. There were some other young players that I learned

a lot from about playing and how to make banjos work for the

players. I was also playing myself. 

It went on, we started the Ode banjos. We probably made

about 1500 banjos, all with aluminum pots. I also kept

experimenting. I did a lot of designs on the pots. Different

shapes, weights, and this sort of thing. Always putting things

together and having local musicians playing what I did.

The turning point came in about 1964. This young kid

hitchhiked out from Athens, Ohio and he had a dulcimer he

made. He had hitchhiked out to see about working in our shop.

He had heard about us. I did hire him. We struck up a really

strong friendship and creative relationship. Turns out, he knew

more than me about old instruments - not making, but the

whole vintage world His name is Kix Stewart. He stayed there

for a year and in a year we totally reworked my product line.

We went in to making the wood rim banjos which ended up

being the Baldwin style A, C, D, F, whatever.

So we made the whole wood rim line of banjos. We even

started making my own planetary tuning pegs. I was the first

one of the modern makers who started making those geared

planetary tuning pegs. Before Schaller, Stew Mac, or anybody

else.

My company had every oddball in it. We were kind of like

bohemian beatniks. There was like 10 people working there.

Everybody had their own key and they would come and go as

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they please. Everybody was crazy. In the meantime, my buddy

Kix decided to go back to Athens, Ohio.

The stress was getting to me. Having to always pay the rent,

pay the wages, and dealing with all of these crazy people. I got

burned out and decided to sell the business. So I sold it to

Baldwin Piano and Organ.

How old were you when you sold the company?

I think I was 26.

So you were really young still.

Yeah.

I worked for Baldwin for 6 months helping them get set up, but

I just wanted to kind of be a free spirit and ended up

wandering around for a while, living in different places, but

came back to the mountains in Boulder.

What year was this that you sold the company?

1966

I happened to be at Newport Folk Festival in 1965.   The folk

thing had died out.

 

When Dylan went electric…

We had camped out there, and they had a rehearsal that night

before the whole thing started. There was about 25 of us there.

I was sitting next to Harry Tuft who runs the Denver Folklore

Center. Pete Seeger had just done his act. Then Bob Dylan

came on, backed up by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and

Harry and I just looked at each other, we didn’t say a word, but

what went through our minds was “Oh shit. Our whole

profession is trashed!” Our jaws just dropped!

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When did you get interested in building banjos again?

In about 5 years. I got interested with a guy working with me

on construction. He was a drummer and said, “I hear you

made banjos, wanna do that again?”.

That was like 1970 when acoustic music was coming back

again. I never thought I’d build another banjo again. But I was

living up in the mountains and I had this shop and I started

building banjos again and called it Ome.

How much square footage was that shop?

About 2500 square feet.

I did kind of the same mistake again because I’m a free

spirited person. One redneck and a bunch of hippies. I had

horses up there just running wild.

Did you ever run into issues building instruments at such a high

elevation?

Banjos aren’t like guitars. They’re plywood. They’re laminated.

The necks might move a bit but Colorado is a great

environment to build in. No - occasionally I’ll get one of those

instruments that were made up there but they’re perfect.

Colorado’s been a good place to build.

We were up there for 2 years. I loved it. My partners wanted to

make it more of a business so we moved the company Ome

down to Boulder. We’re still in Boulder. My partners have all

left and I ended up with the entire company. I never planned it

that way.

I went to a psychic this one time and for some reason she

picked up that I built instruments and she said “Oh, you’ve

done it for several lifetimes”. For some reason I got the music

curse.

Tanya tells me you have a pretty extensive shop.

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See All Of Our Ome Banjos For Sale

We are probably in the top 10 in the world for new banjos.

I like old stuff, and I’ve had a lot of old banjos, but most of

them - they’re falling apart a lot of the time. The animal glue is

coming apart and what not. New instruments are a lot easier

to deal with for sure.

I also believe we are in a golden age for instrument building -

when you look at what the builders such as yourself, Deering,

Collings, Bourgeois, etc. are putting out there.

Yeah. This is definitely a golden age for fretted instruments for

sure. A lot of great builders are out there.

How many people currently work at Ome?

There’s just Tanya, myself, and 2 other people working here.

How many banjos do you make a year now?

We were up to about 175.

How long have your people been with you?

My two guys have been here for about 20 years or so.

Are you the sole person who comes up with the design

elements of new banjos?

Pretty much, yup. I’m pretty much the sole person. There are

some other artists that do some of the engraving and one off

art work, but I do about 90 plus percent of the design work.

How did you learn to do some of that design?

Well, I did a little drawing. But actually, my mother was a

painter, and so it kind of runs in the family. Over a lifetime I’ve

found out that I like to design and build things. I’ve done a fair

amount of design and building in the construction industry. I’ve

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designed my own buildings. I love to design new things. No

formal training.

What we’re doing now, is some of the nicest things we’ve

done. Now, more than ever.

Do you use CNC?

Yes. We sub out our CNC work. CNC is better as it makes it

perfect. We still do a huge amount of hand work.

How would you describe some of the different tone woods that

you offer on a banjo? I know you offer maple, mahogany,

walnut, and cherry. Are there any others?

I love wood. I’ve always loved wood. I’ve worked with wood

since I was a kid. I love it all. I like good solid hardwoods. To

me they all sound good. Actually at Ode I used to make

Brazilian rosewood banjos. The pots were still maple but the

necks and resonator veneers were Brazilian rosewood. When

that dried up, we went to Indian rosewood. We made a fair

amount of rosewood Omes. I really don’t like wood that’s too

bright, and that really heavy wood. We pretty much stopped

doing that. I actually like the sound of the softer woods, the

mahoganys and some of the softer maples, and walnut. To

me, everything that we make now sounds good. You know,

any species of wood can vary quite a bit. When people think,

“maple sounds this way and walnut sounds that way,

mahogany sounds this way”, there’s some truth to that, but it

can vary a large amount. We can make pots that are walnut,

still mostly it’s maple, but we can make walnut pots, cherry

pots, mahogany pots. We make some of everything. To me it

all sounds good. But… it’s hard to do all this stuff you know. It

kind of drives you crazy. So, then again, it’s a matter of

balancing. You gotta stay in business so you gotta keep your

costs down. Every time you do all this different stuff, it runs the

cost up. But I’m kind of addicted to doing different things. I like

to see all the different banjos coming out made with different

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woods and that sort of thing.

You offer a varnish finish on some banjos and a lacquer on

others. Do you spray poly on any of your banjos?

We’re using a catalyzed lacquer. It’s kind of like a lacquer. It’s

not real thick. I don’t like a real thick finish. But again, a banjo

is different than a guitar. When you have a guitar, you don’t

want to lay on poly on a guitar. You do a thin lacquer finish on

an acoustic guitar. A banjo is closer to an electric guitar where

you could put a thick finish on there and it wouldn’t effect the

tone.

So you don’t think there’s a tonal difference between varnish

and lacquer?

I don’t think on a banjo there is a tonal difference between

varnish and lacquer. I think there’s so many bigger things to

deal with like the head being at the right tension and your

tailpiece. There are so many really relatively simple things to

deal with, your setup is huge.

Being an old gun nut, I like oil finishes. And, I’m an

environmentalist, so I like using natural, non toxic finishes. I like

to feel the wood. I’ve always liked that, but it was traditional to

use lacquer, so we used lacquer for years and years. When I

started making Ome in 1970, I think it’s when I started using

the oil finishes on our low end line. I’d see these things come

back 10 or 20 years later and they still looked great. You just

rub a little oil on it. 

Most of what we’re doing now is oil. Even on some more

expensive bluegrass banjos. There’s nothing like lacquer to

bring out the beauty of curly maple. It gives it that optical

effect. But, then if you scratch it, you got a major job to finish it

and buff it up. Oil is a lot easier. Right now we’re doing mostly

oil varnish - tung oil.

Not linseed oil?

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There’s some various combinations of the oil we use. But,

pretty organic stuff. Several coats. It still takes a lot of work,

but generally we can do it less expensively than lacquers.

We’re doing a lot of that. But, it’s all good. You know, when

somebody wants a really flashy banjo with the curly maple

jumping out at you, we put lacquer on it.

Oil also tends to be faster than lacquer. It plays faster. Martin

uses a satin finish on all of their guitar necks because it’s

faster. When you polish it up, the finish gets stickier.

Yeah. Especially here in New Orleans where it is very humid.

What is your hardware generally made of? Is it brass?

Generally most of our metal is machinable brass. The tone

rings have a special formula when you get to the bluegrass

bronze tone ring.

How do you keep the aged brass or bronze hardware that you

offer from turning green?

We’ve been doing a lot of this aged brass for about - I think it’s

going on 6 years. I don’t think I’ve had any complaints of it

turning green. It’s pretty amazing stuff. I’ve seen a few of the

older ones and they haven’t turned green. Actually some of our

oxidation has worn off a little bit. You could re-oxidize it, but it

seems to be working really well.  Again, I’m an old gun nut and

I love the old guns that were made with brass and wood and

seldom have I seen them turn green. They just get this light

patina on them. It looks really nice. Especially with wood.

That’s why we went with the wood armrest too. I added that

wood armrest. It goes really well. It makes the pot look better

and you don’t get allergic reactions to it.

I’ve even made some polished brass banjos. When it’s new,

you can’t tell it from gold.

I’ve seen a lot of our nickel banjos come back, corroded to the

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point where it has pits all in it. The nickel can get trashed out. I

believe the brass probably holds up better than the nickel.

What’s your take on the tonal difference between dowel sticks

vs. coordinator rods and the adjustability factor?

When we set them up, we try to set those things up so that

you don’t really need to adjust them. I know the pot can warp,

and the two rim rods (coordinator rods) seem to give a more

solid structure because the pot can move over years, and

there’s nothing as solid as the two rim rods. On our other

models, it’s still held on with the two lag bolts which I believe,

because you can really tighten those with two attachment

spots, with either a lug nut or a rim rod. I can set up any banjo

either way. Basically it’s the same banjo. You have the two lag

bolts, and you can either use two metal rods or on our old time

banjos we use a wooden rod instead of a metal rod.

And then put a nut on the other as you don’t need two wooden

rods in there. But it seems to be working really well. If you

need to adjust it, like we have some washers in there, you

could take a washer out if you want to increase the angle and

crank it down more. But again, so far we haven’t had a

problem. Also, if you did need to reshape the neck, you don’t

have to steam the glued dowel stick. You just take the lag bolts

out and reshape the back of the neck. It’s a lot easier. So far, it

seems to be working really well.

We’re doing it a little bit different now. I’m making the dowel

sticks a little longer so it’s a tighter fit on our next generation of

stuff coming through here.

Do you have any new models coming out and how do you

come up with a new model?

I usually come up with an idea, then make a prototype. We

have so much stuff, the guys hate it, and we can’t keep up with

it all.

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The last one that came out, I really like this last one, the

Oracle.

It’s kind of like cars, you start out with a Toyota Rav that’s a

real tiny little thing and 10 years later its the size of an SUV. I’d

look at it and think to myself, it’d look a little better with this or

that. I might spend 2 years designing every inlay pattern. It’s

easy for me to keep evolving it for 2 or 3 years, until I get it

right and I say that’s good enough - I’m not doing anything

more.

Do you still play music?

A little bit. I like music. We live in a little quaint mountain town

that has world class music.

Do you ever perform?

I’m a closet

musician. I

identify with

Bill Collings (of

Collings

Guitars and

Mandolins)

(pictured to

the right). To

me, Bill

Collings, as far

as a builder

goes - he’s

probably my

number one hero. He’s a guy who does incredible things. I kind

of always wanted to get to his level of production but never

could. But anyway, my theory is most builders are frustrated

musicians. They are probably guys who wanted to play. But

building and designing instruments is different than playing

them. It’s a different function of the brain. So I’ve found out

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David Bandrowski

Author

that you know, I love music, and I have a good ear for it and a

good feel for it, but I just am more of a design/builder than I

am a musician. I like to go to bed early and get up early.

Musicians have to stay up til 3 and 4 in the morning. Sleep til

noon. I could never do that.

See All Of Our Collings Guitars For Sale

Who are some of your favorite musicians?

I like a lot of music of the ‘70s. I also like traditional music from

all over the world. I’m not a banjo fanatic. I love African music.

Irish music. Greek music. Just all of it. Some of the Asian stuff

gets too weird for me, but I like indigenous music.

If you weren’t a banjo maker, what do you think you’d be

doing?

I would have loved to have been an artist. More design, more

painting. I’m very visual.

What do you like to do in your spare time? What are some of

your hobbies?

I’m an outdoor adventurer. Mountain climb, ski, bike, travel

around the world.

SEE ALL OF OUR OME BANJOS HERE 

Stephen Bruce 5/4/2016, 5:49:32 AM

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I am friends with Myron Koenig who worked at the Baldwin Co.

in Cincinnati after the sale of ODE. He would make a great

interview if you would like to follow up this article.

Reply to Stephen Bruce

R.D. Eno 5/6/2016, 10:40:42 AM

In the spring of 1963, I bought a 10 15/16" Vega tubaphone pot

from Jody Stecher (who kept the tenor neck). I wanted a long

neck just like Pete's, and Pete played a Vega (this was two

years before Dylan's cataclysmic performance at Newport). I

contacted Roger Sprung, who lived in my neighborhood. He

had a closet full of Ode long-necks, and he sold me an early

production model with an 11" pot. I never actually played it.

Please. Would Pete have played an aluminum pot? Instead, I

took it apart and tried to mount the long neck on the Vega pot

in my high school shop. Result: disappointment. Two years

later, while I was at college, I had The Fret Shop in Chicago

send the Frankenjo to North Carolina, where the neck was

properly mounted but the original dowel stick was lost. Fast

forward 50 years. I have a custom long neck, made by Louis

Freilicher of Belchertown, MA, on the Vega (one of 15 banjos in

my house ... some people have cats ...) and still have the Ode

pot its neck lying around. So I took the Ode parts to Louis, and

he remarried them with a new dowel stick, and, to my

amazement, the Ode has a surprisingly pleasant and flexible

voice, with plenty of volume when open and a chucky, woody

tone when stuffed. There's a ballad theme here -- the

undiscovered lover who has been there all along, right under

your nose.

Reply to R.D. Eno