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!

Scheduling it Right

The art of banjo repair is a delicate and careful process. You just cant expect to Do this or that in one day. The entire process needs to be carefully laid out. Dont expect your banjo to be finished in one day. I learned the hard way. One of the biggest complications in the entire process is when you dont have a part. Like on a guitar or mandolin, if you dont have this or that, you cant play music. But with banjo, there's even more parts to worry about. I know you cant do this or that without another component. Let me lay it out for you.

No head:
cant install strings
cant install tailpiece
cant install bridge
cant install mute
cant install tone ring & tension hoop
can install tuners

No tuners:
cant install strings
cant install bridge
cant install mute
can install head
can install tone ring & tension hoop
can install tailpiece

No strings:
cant install bridge
cant install mute
can install tuners
can install head
can install tone ring & tension hoop
can install tailpiece

No Tailpiece:
cant install strings
cant install mute
cant install bridge
can install head
can install tone ring & tension hoop
can install tuners

No Bridge:
cant install strings
cant install mute
can install tailpiece
can install head
can install tone ring & tension hoop
can install tuners

No tone ring & tension hoop:
cant install head
cant install tailpiece
cant install strings
cant install bridge
cant install mute
can install tuners

No mute:
can install head
can install tailpiece
can install strings
can install bridge
can install tone ring & tension hoop
can install tuners

So there's some things that obviously are just extras such as mutes. But see how everything is connected, although tuners can pretty much be installed without needing much. But it is imperative to plan out everything to do. Otherwise, you end up in trouble. So here's my schedule:

Buy banjo by end of January
Buy parts by end of February
Await for parts to arrive
Disassembly by March 10

Reassembly:
New head by: March 20 DONE!
Tailpiece by: March 20 DONE!
New tuners by: March 25
Strings by: March 25
Bridge by: March 25
Extras:
Mute by: March 25

Notice, its all layered upon layered. I cant do this before doing this. Hence scheduling. So happy repairs!

OH my god...

Imagine me. Coming home today. A long hot day at school, after walking one of my friends home from the bus. To find a package on my staircase from elderly. A PACKAGE FROM ELDERLY! I rushed up, opened it as fast as possible, and yanked out my camera for this blog. I started taking pictures and pictures of everything that arrived. Then, I pulled out the new grover tuners, but what's this? They're too short! GAAAH!!! Nooo. How could this be? Life is cruel. God damn it... Also, I also find the head is a half inch too short. My brand new head... TOO SMALL! Now I have to send the tuners and the head back, unless I can counter sink the holes a little... But I'll have to wait again for the head to ship back and forth...

Disassembly, Part three of three!

So this is it. The final entry for the day. Here came most of the tedious and time consuming work.

So I had to grab that monkey wrench from the garage. I never thought my dad didnt have anything smaller in size. But let me cue you in on this picture. The lug that the tailpiece hook goes through was frozen on the end of the rod. I cant take the rod out since there's more nuts on the inside of the rim, so the only thing to do was to get it off somehow. Stupidly, I move the inside nut as far back as possible when i'm trying to unfreeze the lug. It comes off later with a bit of difficulty, but I will put it back on correctly.

So there is the lug between my fingers. The inside nut is still against the body and the lug wasnt easy to take off at first. I was rushing back and forth constantly trying to get the right size wrenches and tools.

So the coordinating rod is held in place by a series of nuts and stuff all over. One to keep it from sliding in, one to keep it from sliding out and one to hold it to the neck bolt. But eventually, nuts aside, I get the rod off ( you can see it resting on the resonator) and this is what the pot assembly pretty much is. A bent piece of ply wood and a whole bunch of wall lugs, screws, fishplates and washers.

Here's the tedious boring part. Make sure you're comfortable and have some good music on when you're doing this. I wasnt on planning on removing each lug nut in the first place, but I went ahead and did it so I could clean the pot throughly. My banjo involved several parts. First, remove each wall lug by unscrewing it from the inside and taking the plates and screws off.

Half an hour later and a very sore bottom, All the lugs and plates are off. Now for even more tedious work. Clean the pot and each little plate!

In the end, I didnt bother cleaning the little plates (the oval things) but I cleaned the tension hoop. Which after being cleaned, was relieved from a 1/8th inch layer of dirt, grime and shit. So now, it is all shiny and nice and clean.

Also, there's the pot which is sorta clean now. There's a bit of gunk left, but it's nothing but cosmetics. But since the thing is plywood, chunks come off occasionally when wiping the thing down.

Now, I have to work backwards slightly. I reassemble the whole thing by re screwing on the tailpiece lug.

So here, (bad photo. Sorry!) I'm taking a monkey wrench and leveling each lug so that way, the hooks wont be at awkward angles.

So with all the wall mount lugs in place for the hooks, I stick in the rod and from the tailpiece end, there should be a nut and washer on the inside.

Unfortunately, in the process of removing the tailpiece lug in the first place, I the inside nut stuck on the end of the threads. So I had to go down and grab the pliers and work it off. In the world of banjos, you cant let anything just sit in a stuck position. Everything must be able to move and adjust. That nut is crucial, it keeps the rod from falling out. and holds the thing in place.

I skipped alot in between, but I reinstalled the coordinator rod. First, feed the rod through the tailpiece hole, then fasten a washer and a nut, then the tailpiece lug. adjust the nut and it should sit against the lug. On the inside, there should already be a nut on the rod and tighten that so it rests against the body. Make sure the connecting nut is on, otherwise, you will have to loosen everything to put it on.

So stick the neck in the respective holes. Make sure the neck is the right way up. First, place a washer and nut on the top bolt and tighten that. Then take the coordinating rod nut and "slither" or work it onto the other neck bolt. Tighten that and we're in business.

So a real quick peek of what it should look like if I was going to reassemble it again, but I'm changing the head, so I cant do anything for now but wait.

So the assembly. Everything back in its place, probably better than before too ;)


Yes, i'm a cal fan. And that is a rugby ball. Here's a look at the neck. There's the mother of toilet seat inlays. I'd change it if I knew how.

The aftermath. My room is a mess. I just cleaned it too. Now I really have to vacuum it again with all those wood particles and metal filings all over. But anyways, that's how to disassemble a banjo and prep it for new parts.

Good luck to you all and happy strummin'