Tin Can Banjo Ukulele

Well, I have to say it: the tin can banjo's rock. I take a paint tin, cut it so it's 2" thick, add a shelf to the underside, a cone, bridge and lid. It's welded to a steel neck with a galvanized steel wrap around, iron headstock and man does it sound good. It's way lightweight compared to the Mush-Uke and has a traditional banjo plunk, with a Ukulele flair.
The strings are banjo medium weight and as the uke is four string, (the banjo strings come as a set of five), I take out the 2nd string and make it (in weight) 11 - 13 - 22 - 11 and that gives, for the 17' scale, a good A - E - C - G with just a nice amount of tension on the strings, both to weight the cone and to be responsive ( and friendly) on the fingers.
The thin banjo strings are extremely responsive to bending and tuning needs to be pretty precise or it sounds off, which is not a problem once the wire is stretched out and the cone is broken in; the wire strings stabilize and the guitar is a joy to play. The wires seem to take (like the nylons) about three days to stretch out fully although initially it seems to stretch out sooner because the stretching is more gradual. The cone as well needs at least three days of regular playing ( say 3 - 6 hours) to work in, and about three months to work in properly. I'll get a Youtube sound vid going soon. The Mush-Uke and the Iron Ukulele for now are on the back-burner. Tin Can Banjo is where it's at for me right now.
  Contact me at ironuke@thegreatmush-uke.com.