Disassembly part two

So i'm going to pick this up from where I last left off.

So here, I begin the long awaited process of removing the coordinator rod. First, I loosen the connecting nut between the neck bolt and the rod itself. To do that, I loosen it and the nut rolls onto the rod. then the neck is completely separated from the rod.

For some reason, when I loosened the rod, I played around with some of the nuts on the end and the tail piece came off. So now the endpiece nut is loose.

Well, since the tailpiece came off, I might as well take off the hook and nut for the tail piece. It took a bit of muscle to work the darn thing off.

Well, I had take the neck off to make the whole process a bit easier. It looks like the rod is still connected, but it's actually hanging around the other hole. To remove the neck, there's two bolts. One bolted directly to the pot and the other one with the connecting nut from the rod. So undo the coordinator nut and then undo the nut that holds the neck onto the body and it comes right off.

So here's the damages of the previous owner. It's a bit hard to see in this photo, but those two holes are where the neck bolts go. There's a groove offset of the holds and I cant fix it. Also, alot of weird newspaper gunk came off too. Also, There was a piece of emory cloth shoved in between to act as a shim I first thought. But when I put back on the neck, It turns out the whole thing was warped so I ended up sticking it back in.

So there's the next thing I have to do before I can do anything else. I gotta get the arm rest off of the body. The thing is held on with a small fishplate and two screws. So undo the screws and the plate and the armrest will come off.

So this is a picture of the neck separated from the pot assembly. You can tell because you can see it in the back. But it's a decent neck. I'm not too crazy about the Mother of Toilet Seat inlays.

Another view of the neck

I probably missed some photos, but here's the headstock with the tuners removed. The smaller holes that surround the large holes are the screw holes for the tuners to secure to with screws. Triumphant with my victory over taking the tuners off, I realized now a small problem.

The bushings are still in. I have no clue on how to remove these sort of things.

I ended taking a small finishing hammer and a punch and tapping the bushings out. I had to be careful while doing for fear of damaging the really thin punch. To remove, Fit the punch against the rim on the inside, then give a several sharp taps, move the punch to the other side of the inside rim of the bushing and repeat the process. You must do it evenly, other

So there's the headstock, now devoid of its old bushings. Clean the headstock with a little warm soapy water and it'll look pretty decent.

Oops, Sorry. I guess dealt with the neck first before removing the armrest. But this view gives you an idea of how the rest is attached on. It's all tension and screws.

Again, I would like to apologize for all the poor pictures. Next time I will have someone take pictures for me. But that's my fingers taking off each nut. I took off about 31 nuts. To make sure none get lost, remove the hook and screw the nuts back on. When taking them off, try to do it systematically. It's a time consuming process and should be done carefully. Otherwise, you will end up with the head making annoying crinkly sounds as you're taking off the nuts.

So there, all the hooks and nuts are gone. In this picture, I forgot to take one off. But the hooks hold down the tension hoop (what i'm holding in the above picture) and the hooks are secured by the nuts through the wall shoes.

So there goes the ring. The head comes off to reveal the tone ring.

I was annoyed at the rather cheap tone ring. It was nothing more than a piece of galvanized steel rolled into a circle. I thought at least it would be a nicer material, rather than this rebar-like piece of steel. Stay tuned for the final segment of Disassembly

Disassembly: part one of 3

One of three is pretty much a guess. It might be one of four. But that aside, today, I did the disassembly!

Here she is. In all her glory! Strangely, she still dont have a name. So If there actually are readers out there, I encourage a name contest for her. Granted, some of my other stringed instruments dont have female names. My electric guitar is named Reynaldo but dont sweat it. If you feel a guy's name is more appropriate for a banjo, go right ahead.

So this is it. Before any disassembly, i'm going to play her one last time. And I barely pick out Linger awhile one last time before the replacement parts arrive.

So after that, I started with unscrewing the resonator off. One disapointment about this banjo is that the resonator has to be screwed on. And also, the lack of a flange is annoying.

Here's a better view of the back as I'm unscrewing it. Pretty nice resonator though. It's one of the reasons why I bought this one.

The Back comes off with a little work and reveals a single coordinator rod system. (See previous post for info on that)

So that's how to take it off. For the remaining time, the back will stay off until new parts arrive as well as my oval head screws. I have yet to find those.

Not exactly sure how to begin, I begin with removing the strings one at a time. At first work is slow, but after awhile, my hand hurts since these things suck at doing their intended job, keeping the strings in tune.

Realizing the potential of efficiency I pulled out my trusty string winder and when I undid these strings, the last person obviously did not know how to put strings on. Apparently, it seems like it was just stuck in and he started to turn the pegs.

So all the strings are gone. or at least they seem like that in this photo.

Now came the task of removing the strings from their respective slots. Not quite the easy task, but I manage somehow. Since these strings are kinda ancient, they've rusted a little in their feed slots so I have to work them out little by little. To you stringed instrument players, you probably know the annoyance of the ends of your strings being all curly and incapable of fitting through the small holes where strings feed through. I found a pretty easy solution which I had wished I thought of many years ago. Just cut off the offending curly part.

So there she is without strings. Clean, quick and dirty. There's no going back now. My strings were thrown out in the trash already and today is trash day and they're gone.

View of the neck side. without strings. It feels alot nicer without strings. At first, I thought they frets were rather blocky but with those junk strings off, they're rather smooth, but could probably do with a little bit of shaping.


So here ends the labour I have gone through so far. There I sit, removing the tuners from the headstock. I made the mistake of removing the gear then the whole unit. The whole thing comes out as one, and that one move was an unnecessary waste of time. But check my next post for part two.

Coordinator Rods: A love hate relationship

I took it apart at last today! I'll have an entry on that coming up soon. But I'd like to take a little time to explain single coordinating rods.

On guitars, it's a very difficult task to adjust the neck angle. You have to manipulate the truss rod inside the neck to get it to either settle or become tight. But with banjos, it's a much easier process. Espically if you have a double rod set. Imagine this is kinda of a push pull relationship.

For example:
In the top image, Both the rods are the same length. Now in the second image, the lower rod, has had the adjuster nut moved so the rod is longer. Therefore, it pushes the neck back giving it a positive angle. In the lower image, the upper rod is increased in length and causes a negative angle. (If I got the positive and negative wrong, sorry).

But I have a single. So it's much harder to adjust. It merely holds the neck in place rather than doing any true adjusting. But here's the low down: I have to make shims and slip them into place to change the angle. Which is rather time consuming. It I could, I'd just go and add another rod to the banjo.

Parts

I have just completed another stage in my journey to building a banjo. Well, technically rebuilding.

Phase 1: Order banjo *check*

Phase 2: Order parts *check*

Phase 3: Document the repair (no check)

SP 1: Dismantle Banjo
SP 2: Clean all existing Parts
SP 3: Replace old parts with new parts
SSP 1: Change tuners
SSP 2: Change Head
SSP 3: Change Tailpiece
SSP 4: Replace bad nut
SSP 4.5: Change Bridge
SSP 5: Change Strings
SP 4: Documentation

Phase 4: presentation

Ok, So phase 3 has yet to come. But I did buy all my parts last night. Elderly hasnt shipped out my stuff yet, but I think Janet Davis music has started sending my mute.

things bought:

1 Waverly Tailpiece
1 11" remo weather king with frosted white top, 5/8ths" crown
3 sets of Vega tenor Strings
1 set of 4 grover perma tension pegs
1 replacement hex nut
1 grover banjo bridge with inserts
1 Copy of Harry Reser's 1927 Banjo learning guide
1 endstring mute

Course of Action

Hm, Lets see. I know I ought to order parts now, but for now, I'm going to tell you my plans.

1. Order Parts
2. When Parts arrive, disassemble the banjo
3. Clean all parts, and make necessary changes
4. Photodocument everything
5. Create a presentation

it's Here!

So it is finally here! I'm just late in posting this. So It arrived in the mail last monday. Jan 29, 2007 fresh from Oklahoma. I had no idea when it would get here and by 4:30 I was kinda worried that it would never come. But when that UPS truck rolled by, I was excited. This was one of the first things I have ever bought on ebay for my sole pleasure and By dinner time, I had it cleaned and ready. Of course, It's not ever ready. So lets begin.

Image one: That's my mandolin Ethel next to the Tenor Banjo. They both have those gibsonesque head stocks which I like alot, but the tenor's veneer was starting to come off. So I might get someone to fix that up a bit. But looking it over, it's quite nice.

Image two: Yes that is my leg before you ask. It came with a stock POS tailpiece with a useless top design thingy. Obviously, I am going to change this. And furthermore, I decided on Waverly for my tailpiece. The one thing I dislike is the resonator. The only way to mount it, is to screw it onto the lugs. Which is a pain. And another thing. The screws suck. The one closest to the tailpiece requires an even bigger screw of which, I have none. So there's a multitude of problems. And this one certainly is a fixer upper.

Image three:
Headstock, As I said. Gibsonesque. Since it's blank, I probably ought to take the opportunity to find a gibson logo and screen it on. That would be awesome. But I gotta find it fast before I change the tuners.


And a curly maple resonator. Which Is a nice thing about it.

Specifications:

Head size(Diameter): 11"
Crown: 3/4"
Bridge: Stock shit: 1/2 inch
Frets: 19 block
tailpiece: stock shit: Resembles Model A type
Armrest: Cheap with veneer
head: n/a
tuners: Open back gear
Pot: Curly Pressed maple
Neck rod: Single tension
Overall height: 36"
Lugs: 30
hooks: Flat
Tone ring: unknown currently

Wait for more pictures of it disassembled!

My source of Banjo Inspiration

It's not everyday one wakes up and wants to play tenor banjo. I first saw this one in a scene from "King of Jazz" starring the Paul Whiteman band. And there was a 50 second segment of Mike Pigitore playing a nice version of Linger Awhile. Seeing him play, I just had to play tenor banjo.