This 5 string banjo restoration job started off with the customer bringing the banjo to me to have the G string tuner and the broken G string guide replaced.
The banjo was, shall we say, in a well used condition.
However, when I got it onto the bench, it quickly became clear that this instrument was in a very sorry state and, at that point, I reckoned it was beyond help within a justifiable cost.
I rang the customer and told him I thought he should forget about spending the money on this instrument and should look for a used one instead.
While he was having a think about it I took the banjo apart to have a look around.
The head tension was very loose and I though it was so stretched that it wouldn’t be capable of being tensioned up. This meant the strings were lying on the frets because the bridge was sunk into the head.
The G string tuner had fallen out, the G string guide was broken, a couple of the tuners on the headstock had come loose because the screw holes had been widened out with age, the top nut was broken in two pieces, the fretboard was stained and dried up, the head was very dirty etc,etc,etc.
I tightened up the head to see what would happen and lo and behold, it tightened up and held ok. I was able to tune it up to G#.
Inside the resonator, there was enough fluff and hair with which you could knit 2 woolly jumpers.
So, after quite a bit of work:
tensioning the head
straightening the neck and re-setting it
making a new hand-cut bone top nut
making a new Corian G string guide (bone isn’t hard enough for this job)
cleaning out the G string tuner hole and refitting the tuner, that is now held in with a paste made up of mahogany dust and Titebond to lock the tuner splines into the hole
cleaning out the resonator
Cleaning & oiling the fretboard
Cleaning the head
Plugging the screw holes in 2 of the machine head tuners and re-fitting the tuners
New strings
Setting the intonation and action.
The banjo has been brought back from the dead and is now sounding clear and bright due to the cleaning out of the resonator and the tuning up of the head.
