G'day Mr Red,

My Dad used to make very pretty 'fiddleback maple' lagerphone knockers (one of them is included with the Australian National Library's exhibit of John Meredith's seminal lagerphone - third in line from:

(1) The anonymous 'rabbit poisoner' who played one in Holbrook a
round 1953 /

(2) the ~ copy made by Claude Meredith after seeing the local Red Cross 'talent quest' where the poisoner played /

(3) John's copy he made after visiting his brother Claude, along with a couple of the original Bushwhackers Band /

(4) the one made and played by Brian Loughlin ... which was the one that launched its popularity, at the beginning of the Australian "Folk revival".)

My Maple one, made by Dad in the 1970s, was eventually broken by a drunken television jounalist who "borrowed" my lagerphone (modelled on Brian Loughlin's), while we were playing at the old "729 Club" - a north-Sydney television set club.

I now recommend a good handle from an engineer's hammer (mine are made from "Spotted Gum" - a fine, interlocked-grain Australian hardwood ... and the two narrow sides are smoothly 'rippled' at spacings of 20 mm and 25 mm - to vary the 'rattle rate'.

Regards,

Bob