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Well, it was fun doing the whole project. I finished and got an A on it. Boo Yeah!

Finishing

Looking back, this has been a fun project. Planning was the biggest key to doing the entire project.

What I've learned:
Money isn't easy to come by, but its damn easy to spend.
If I'm going to work, I'd best put my whole effort into it
I've really gotten closer to my tools

Working on something like this, something you've put your tears, sweat and blood into, I know the feeling. Its a rush to finally see your project finished like this. All's left is to fill out the form and get a grade.

Banjo specs:

Head diameter: 11 1/8th inch
Head type: fyberskin
Lugs: 30 hex
tailpiece: Waverly
bridge: Grover ebony with inserts
Neck: 19 frets
Brand: Astro
Tuners: Five star Planetary 9:1 ratio
Strings: Vega tenor strings T09, T16, T23, T30

Process:

Jan 29: Purchased Banjo from Oklahoma
Feb 28: Disassembled entire banjo
March 14: Purchased head
March 14: Installed head
March 22: Purchased tuners
March 31: Installed tuners
March 31: Installed strings and bridge
March 31: Installed mutes
April 1: Finished

Due date of project: April 14

DONE!

Happy strummin' to all!

Mute: JDM tone enhancer.

My parents aren't exactly tolerant to all sorts of noises espically those at night. Which is why I purchased the tone enhancer/mute from Janet Davis music.

So here's my banjo. Its been played. It needs something. It's 11 o'clock (metaphorically) and I'm itching to play. Yet, the banjo is a loud son'of a b****. Its not exactly easy to cover up such a sound as a banjo at night.

This is it. Heavy machined piece of brass and cork. Two thumb screws tighten and loosen the lower plate.

To put it on, remove the bottom plate and place top piece in position, with the angled part towards the bridge.

With a careful hand, screw on the piece corresponding to each other. Take care to make sure the bottom plate is on correctly.

And there ya go, Its installed and ready to go. No need to take it off now.

Positions available:
Close to tail piece: no effect Banjo -esque
between tail piece and bridge: some effect
Cork directly on bridge: Lutish or archtop guitar sound. Very pleasant
Cork on strings past the bridge: mutes it good!

Happy strummin'!

Changing strings

Its not a pleasant job. I hate it in fact. I absent minded attempted to tune my tenor with brand new strings to a mandolin which is tuned a fifth above a tenor. With nasty results. I snapped the G string thinking it was a D. It happens when you haven't played since the start of the month. But when I change or put new strings in, I use a locking method which is handy since planetary tuners aren't exactly known for being locking. At all.

You may ask, what is a locking method? Its a special way of stringing a string without resorting to the old stereotypical way of just stick it in and turn the tuners. With this method, you're guaranteed not to let the strings slip in any way.

I'm going to refer to the part you stick the string though as the tuning column. There should be a hole through it for the string to feed through. Turn it so that the hole is perpendicular to the fretboard. Have your string ready and feed from inside out. Meaning, if the tuner is on the left side, looking at it from the front, stick the string though from the right and out the left side. Leave a little slack and bring the string towards the headstock and wrap around the tuning column. Feed the string under the string that's inside the column and pull it up. With a grip on it, start turning until it holds in place. You shouldn't have any problems anymore with slippage. If you do, feel free to use any other method.

Putting strings on a Waverly copy tailpiece

So I put a Waverly copy tailpiece on my banjo. I felt its the best design since it could accommodate both four strings and five strings. It has a classy look as well since its a shorter version of the Kershner tailpieces. So here, it sits barren and stringless.

For my banjo, I use Vega tenor strings. These have loop ends which hook nicely onto the little nuts that stick out from the back of the tailpiece.

Like so, feed the hook through the loop of the string. (its not as easy as I thought)

Now is the really hard part about this whole thing. Feed the wire through the hole somehow. I thought it'd be much simpler but it isint. The design of the string is rather awkward so you cant feed the string through that easily.

Eventually, I got it through. So grab your bridge, we're going to measure where it should be.

Theoretically, the 12th fret is the exact middle of the string from nut to bridge. I think it also works with guitars, but it turns out from nut to 12th fret, its about 11 1/4th inches. So measure 11 1/4th inches from the 12th fret towards the tailpiece. Wherever 0 or 11 1/4th inches is marked (whichever you used) put your tailpiece there.

I'm not going to bother talking about how to wind strings in this post, but here's the end result. Pretty?


Happy Strummin'!

Tuners

I'm going to show you all a quick way, or my way of installing 5 star planetary gear tuners.

First as always as ever, lay out a soft cloth if you're working on a hard surface. This protects your banjo/whatever and protects your desk as well.
So to change your banjo, you need. Your banjo! Grab it, and your new spiffy tuners as well and get ready to put them in. I had previously reamed holes in the woodshop earlier that day and the holes are the correct size for the new tuners. The thing about these five stars, is that they have a little thing on the back to dig into the wood and prevent it from spinning about when tuning. So there's a special process to do it.

First, remove the screw from the top holding down the pearloid button.

Removing the button should reveal the brass squared cylinder which works with the buttons. Remove the collar that would sit beneath the button and take special care to remove the felt washer as well.

On the other end, there's an adjustable collar and washer, remove that too.

Stripped down to the essentials, it should resemble something like this:

Fit the tuner's column sleeve in as far as possible. if you want to maintain a uniform look, have the little part that sticks out pointing the same direction on all of them.

Slip a plastic washer between the chrome

Take a socket and place it on top of the plastic washer.

Have a piece of thick material ready at hand for what we're about to do next. Punch a hole through it. I used card stock since it is thick and easily punchable. Put a hole through it.

Place it over the tuning top where the string goes through.

And place another socket on top. We're going to be using compression forces to get that tuner locked into place. Its also helpful when the tuner wont go all the way in.

Using a C clamp, put it over the sockets and start turning. Sockets are ideal for this job since they have a smooth and/or polished surface making it ideal for this work.

Keep turning! Gently does the job. Don't do the work fast. You'll either end up damaging the banjo or the tuners themselves.

That should be the end result. A tuner fit snugly in place.

Put back on the washer and ring collar and tighten.

Replace the column sleeve as well as the felt washer.

Fit the pearloid button back on and screw it back tightly. If its loose, it wont hold a note for what its worth.

Voila! That's what it should look like. Now repeat three more times!

The front collar ring put back in snugly in place.


Happy strummin'!

Reaming

Ah the day finally has come. I got to ream new holes into my banjo headstock. Rather than drilling, I finally learned to use a new process called reaming. Which is entirely in process than drilling.

The process of reaming: Holes are not made perfect. Holes are never perfect unless they are reamed. Consider drill bits. I bet most of you have seen one. Imagine a rectangle twisted into a helical shape with a sharp edge. These are for rough holes. To get a hole to the exact size you need, you ream it to the perfect size. This is where reaming comes into play. It's almost like a propeller just extruded with a cutting face on each side.

After some consoling with the forums on www.banjohangout.org I decided I would have to do the whole thing by hand rather than relying on a machine. Since it's a careful process, I only had one chance to do it. So getting down to business, below, is a picture of my mentor, Martin Sweet's hand holding a very slightly smaller reamer than what I needed, but It got the job done.

Using a tap thingy, (sorry, I dont know the true name). Slowly and surely, I would increase the size of the holes from 11/16ths to 3/8ths. The picture below is the headstock with the highest, lowest and furthest right holes already reamed. The hole furthest left has only been started and I realized I should be taking photos.

Does it sound hard? It really isn't actually. Sure, my wrist felt like heck, but it was well worth it.

Screwing off!

So for the past several days, I have also been chasing down a set of resonator screws which apparently are harder to find than a piece of hay in a stack of needles. But found something quite close. Turns out, I needed something closer to metric than I thought. 4 mm screw 5/8ths in length. Even the local hardware store (which I had complete faith in having everything imaginable in stock). But I resorted to buying stainless steel button head machine screws. Which turned out to be at least 3 times cheaper than the chrome screws I had purchased. (4 chrome buttonheads: 11 dollars. 4 stainless steel button heads: 3 dollars). So, now I have my screw and I will have yet to cut them down to size.

Tweens'

So I came home, tired one Thursday night from my usual practices and rehersals for the musical. I found waiting for me there, a set of Planetary tuners! Huzzah! Hooray! My package from Stewmac finally arrived and I started snapping away. But when I compared the height of the nut to the height of the headstock, I was shocked. Did I really buy too short tuners again!? I sweated. I freaked out. I ripped off the veneer plate from the headstock taking the nut off as well. I opened up a tuner and realized. The nuts are height adjustable. BWah?! I just ripped off the head plate for nothing?! Gaaah. So now begins the tedious process of re gluing it back on. Not so much tedious as much as plain sucks. It was loose anyways. How else do you think I got my fingers into it? So now, its re glued and ready to be used. Well, drilled. The tuners are 3/8ths of an inch whereas the holes are a bit smaller for those old economy tuners.

Actual Identity of my banjo

You've seen my pictures. My banjo has pretty much remained a mystery brand. UNTIL TODAY! During my usual browsing of ebay, I came across an Astro brand tenor banjo. Same frets, same tailpiece, same truss rod cover. Except, this one has the logo. That would explain the two small holes in the headstock.

An Update.

I'm ahead of schedule for the head, but I'm behind for the tuners. Once I get planetary tuners, i'm good to go for strings, bridge and the mute. Then, i'm all done!

Sticking on an armrest

Very simple procedure to do here. Stick on the original armrest. It works, it works. I dont like the look of it, but it works within budget.

So that's it. A simple piece of wood with a veneer, two metal plates and two screws.

So disassemble the mounting unit and voila! An armrest ready for installation.

Work it between two hooks of your choice somehow.

Loosely screw in both screws that way, you can still adjust the height.

When you get your desired height, just tighten it and you're good to go.

Installing the tailpiece

So my banjo is different from most models. Most require this and that to install the tailpiece. All these sort of things like hooks, t plates, l brackets, etc. I dont bother. Luckily, my banjo only needs a lug which I've got. But to accommodate the Waverly, I had to make a special modification involving shortening the distance between the lug and the pot. I had to get rid of the extra nut and replace it with a new washer and a locking split ring washer which turned out rather nice.

So that's how it looks. Simple piece of equipment. The bar from the tailpiece drops down through that hole and screw in the locking nut.

This is a waverly, a five string design, but works with four. in essential, its a lighter version of a Kershner. It uses a simple t head bolt to hold the thing down which works effectively.

So see how the holding bolt drops directly through that hole? I wouldnt do that before the modification I made.
Screw in the nut (the thing that's longer than the pot) And you're done! Simple is it not?

Its a simple design, but very elegant. Quite ravishing if I say so myself.

So that's it. Simple, dimple, done. Its merely a job of getting it to fit proper.

Here's a little sneak preview of what's to come. I went all out and got the nicer bridge. :)

Happy Strumming!

How to install a new head badly. Sorry!

For those of you who are wondering, is he still working on the banjo? Yes. Yes I am. Dont have to think twice about that. So today, March 16, 2007, I went out to Webster st. and took the initiative and bought a new banjo head. Coming home a little later while. I just was aching to install it. And of all things graceful and good. It fit! So now, I started and resumed work. Happily and bubbling along. I set off to finish my senior project.

So those of you who have read this before, this is my other desk. My working drafting desk with a 2000 dollar drafting machine on it. Its a 1954 Drafting table and its lasted a long time. Despite the profanity marred on it in random areas.

So since I decided to stray away from using the floor as my working surface, I had to protect my instrument as well as my desk. So Lay out a towel just to be safe. Dont use the nice ones!

This is pretty much where we last left off. The banjo was pretty much reassembled to the extent of the neck, rods and wall lugs.

So there's the tone ring on. Waiting for a new head. Theres a small notch running around allowing for the rolled piece of steel to fit in it and the head sits on top of the ring therefore, does not make any contact with the wood rim at all. But allows a free clear ringing tone.

And here are the two heads. The top one with the nasty looking yellow glue is the old head. A frosted bottom type head with a shiny top. Yuck. The bottom one is a new fyberskin head I bought for 10 dollars. What a deal! These usually run for 17 dollars. As well as my luck in managing to get one that acutualy fit! For those of you who dont know. Fyberskin is a synthetic material like a regular banjo head. But with the same tonal qualities of skin. But without the drastic changes with temperature and humidity.

So with the tone ring put on for a test, see the notch? The head AND the hoop has to go there. And with that neck and the flaws, its a difficult task certainly.

So there's the head attempted and wedged into place. Its not clean nor is it pretty.

Tension hooks, ready for the hoop. Not yet actually. But what I did was dump them onto the old head and started threading some of them through the holes.

By doing that, you kinda can reach a tension equality without having to do that for individual pieces. Or maybe its just easier that way.

Well, theres the hoop in place. The hooks latch on with the flat face onto it and it works nicely. Although i'm not a big fan of the easy slippage.

So I had to stick the tailpiece on just to make sure it'll fit fine. Yes it does.

And somehow in the process, that little overlap of the hook you see at the bottom got off centered so when I finished, I had to re do the entire thing. But here's the start of the bad version. Some of the hooks are in place, some arent.

Now, its with all the hooks in place, but it looks rather odd doesnt it? The right side has too much slack in the material for some reason. This started to scare me.

I started off using a very bad small monkey wrench. It was finky and it didnt work too well. I ended up tightening the things with just my fingers. Which was a very bad idea.

Another view of me tightening. Note my ugly left wrist.

The process continues

And continues

Until all thirty hooks are in, tightened at the same tension. But then, at this point, I noticed the overlap is offcenter.

I think this is from the second time I put the head on. This time, I had a better system. Espically now that i had the quarter inch tool to make life easier.

Reinstalling the last hook. It took me forever just to get that far.

Yes, i'm a Notre Dame fan

So there's what it looks like competed. All hooks done. But note, there's still a slack in the material at the lower right. And I ended redoing the hooks. I didnt take any pictures for that, Sorry. But The idea is still the same. Only then, I had the hex turner.

So my new tailpiece, the waverly model is rather nice. Kinda heavy. Tension adjustable. That's good an all. Luckily, it managed to cover up the overlap in the hoop.

So the process is done. Notice how the hoop is centered and I just test it quickly with a drum stick to see if theres a consistent tension all around. If not, some things need to be tightened and some loosened. Well, just tightened. :)

Update edit: Note. When tightening your nuts, hooks will have a tendency to slip around and not have a good grip on the hoop. So what I found which works best for me and the equipment that i have was to take a soft cloth and a finishing hammer and knock the hooks into place to make full contact.

Happy Strumming!