Since I started building banjos I have always tried to buy and stockpile the nicest maple I could afford. Maple is the most traditional banjo wood, so I figured I would always need it. Since I restarted Beansprout, folks have been picking walnut over maple 4 to 1! Luckily, there is plenty of walnut available in Oregon. This summer I went back to visit Ken and Lizann at the Carpenter Ant stash to grab some more walnut, but I had already cleaned all the walnut out of the shed! We went down to the basement shop and I found a shelf in the corner with cutoffs from years of Ken’s furniture projects. There were three boxes of chunks of Oregon walnut, too small for furniture but perfect for the little banjos I build. Each cutoff was from a different board and project, so every color and grain pattern was represented. This makes this current batch of banjo rims more interesting to look as well as ecologically and economically sound. Wrap it all up in Pistachio from California orchards and this one is ready for service.