Go to the Sound Files page to hear Dan play this banjo setup with three different heads.

Banjo 047  ~Dan Levenson~

The Ovilla - A Custom program.  This was a fun project to do.  Dan, Miss Jennifer and I worked hand in hand on this one.  We took a special piece of wood I had been saving for a project just like this one.  A very colorful piece of flamed Yellow Birch.  We picked colored veneers to reflect the colors in the wood.  One color just happened to be purple, one of Dan's favorite colors.  We retained the Dobson Style peghead and heel of the standard Ovilla.  It has a frailing scoop, a 25.5” scale, a double action truss-rod and Scalloped bone nut.  Ebony fingerboard and peghead overlay.  The Wizard in the Moon is a new peghead inlay.  We were drinking coffee in the shop on the Levensons' first visit.  Dan noticed an inlay drawing in my sketches he really liked.  It was the Wizard in the Moon.  Well, up to now I had never drawn anything like that.  We found he was looking at several sketches laying on top of one another.  The Wizard in the Moon was born.  The fingerboard inlays came with a little more effort.  We batted around many ideas over several months.  Swinging on the Moon was what finally came out of the end of my pencil.  It is one of my favorite inlays to date.  Dan's choice for this project was a Tony Pass Old Wood Birch rim, 12" x 1/2" x 3".   We finished with nickel shoes & hooks, closed ball end nuts and custom shoe screws.  5-star tuning pegs with black colored knobs.  Abalone side dots, a no-knot tailpiece and a Renaissance Head.  Lastly, it went into a TKL Professional Archtop Case in Tweed.