Well, just spoke to one of our local luthiers (turns out there are two in our small town!).

He in fact does do work on banjos, plays them and makes custom ones as well, so I'm going to drop them around at his workshop tomorrow for an assessment and quote. He sounds very excited to meet them, so here's hoping.

He also told me that he can get me started on using them, but that there's an excellent player/teacher just up the road too! Seems like I've landed me in banjo heaven without even knowing it! I think her name is Wendy Holman, going to go look at her youtube channel now.

I'm singing duelling banjos in my head as we speak.... (danga dang dang dang dang dang dang dang....)

James.