Assessment of the possibility of restoration

Currently completely unplayable, but I judge it is possible to restore it.

Potential after repair

Here’s the pot. It is useless as it is, but has all its hardware. This is a great advantage in an old instrument, as matching parts would be difficult to find.

Counting the Rim Hooks gives a good indication of the  instrument quality intended by the manufacturer (Dallas in London). This has 24 hooks. That number of hooks is costly and requires hard work. Dallas obviously intended this to be a good performers’ instrument.

The Head is calfskin. This was universal at the time of manufacture. A few players still prefer the ‘tubby’ sound of calfskin, but the risk they run is obvious from the picture. Calfskin reacts to the moisture in the atmosphere. If you play the instrument in a warm room with many people, the head will loosen and the banjo will sound ‘dead’. Conversely, if you store it in a dry environment the head will tighten, and can split.

Calfskin has been replaced by Mylar, which is virtually impossible to break, and gives a brighter and more consistent sound.

In the 1910s to 1920s makers found that a piece of metal wire under the edge of the skin made the banjo louder. Nobody knew why, but thicker and heavier metal rings sounded even louder. Makers tried rings made from tubes, thinking that the sound collected there. They drilled holes around the tubes to ‘let the sound out’. They called these rings ‘Tone Rings’.

It wasn’t until the 1930’s that they found out what was happening. When strings are struck with a simple wood rim, part of the energy dissipates into shaking the wooden parts of the instrument, which make no sound. They realised the simple mass of the ring stopped the vibrations dissipating into the instrument, and all the energy radiated as sound from the vibrating head.

This ring is too light, and the copper content has corroded.

These Tuning Pegs rely on gripping the wood of the Headstock by friction in order to allow the peg to hold the tension of the string.

That is a risky and unreliable method, as the wood hardness can vary around the edge of the Tuning Peg hole, and even the humidity of the room can make the peg slip, or be too tight. As a result, banjos had a reputation for being out of tune, which persists to this day.

Modern banjos use geared (4.1 ratio) Planetary Tuners. These don’t slip and give smooth tuning up to an exact pitch. They are fighting that reputation, which is now undeserved. So these pegs need replacing.

This shows both the lovely quality the instrument was made to, and also the amount of use it has had over its life of around 90 years.

The Resonator is beautiful walnut, undamaged, which is rare in an instrument of this age. The Neck is a walnut/ ebony/ walnut laminate, which prevents it warping. The Headstock also shows little damage; it is easy to damage this part if the instrument falls over.

The light wood near of the top of the neck shows where the hand position has gradually worn off the varnish. This has been played a lot! Now, do I remove the signs of wear, or leave them – to indicate the previous life of the instrument? I decided to polish up the neck, but not to totally eliminate these harmless signs of age.

Dallas was a manufacturer in London from the late 1800s. They had a varied history, but successfully made good banjos and drums. They had the contract with George Formby to make Banjoleles with the ‘George Formby’ name on. Check out  Grace’s Guide

You can also see some Fingerboard wear, showing the amount of use this instrument has had.

You can see the pressure plate which pulls the neck tightly on – a simple, but very clever and effective mechanism, originating around 1900. This fits around the wooden rod, variously called a Dowel Rod or a Perch Pole. The other end of this rod is held in place by the screw which holds the tailpiece on. Nowadays, the Dowel Rod is usually replaced by two metal Coordinator Rods which give more control.

Most of the metal parts are rusty, but they are all present – a major boon, as replacing old parts is usually a nightmare.

The detail of the wear shows ho usew much this instrument has had. The Frets are dented in where the strings have worn them down. There are so many damaged Frets that I think they all should be replaced – a ‘complete refret’.

The Fingerboard surface has worn away where strings and fingernails have rubbed it. It has been lacquered, I don’t know whether that was original or a later addition, but it isn’t something we would do to beautiful ebony these days. I intend to clean it up and just feed the wood.

Pressure Plate

I’m using a very handy tool called a Precision Notched Straightedge for checking the Neck Relief – that’s whether it is dead straight, or is bowed forwards or back.

I can measure the Neck Relief with an ordinary feeler gauge. Here I have 0.4mm or 0.012 inches of forward bow underneath the Straightedge in the centre of the neck. That’s an ideal amount, and I’m very glad, because there is no easy way to adjust the Neck Bow on these instruments, you have to rely on the way the Neck was constructed.

Dallas did a great job of laminating walnut and ebony, with grain directions crossed, so that even at about 90 years old the neck retains its original configuration.

I need to measure the old fret size before I order some new ones. I want them to drop in as near as possible to the originals.

I’ve de-rusted all the metal parts, they have shone up nicely. I use HG Rust Remover with some white spirit mixed in to clean. Seems to do the job well.

The old Frets have been removed. I have to use these tools to make sure I don’t pull out chunks of ebony as the fret comes out. Yes that is a soldering iron! It has a specially shaped tip to heat the fret without damaging the Fingerboard.

Scrubs up nicely, doesn’t it? Why anyone would want to add lacquer to this beautiful surface is beyond me.

After the surface is clean, I can gently colour it to restore the blackness. Believe it or not, I am using slightly diluted permanent black ink, which I find soaks in well and restores the correct colour.

Glad to have got rid of the old pegs. They were unreliable. You don’t want your banjo self-detuning when you’re in the middle of a performance.

New Frets in. I have to cut the fretwire approximately to length, bend each one slightly so they go in curved,, then press each fret into place. That’s where this photo was taken.

Then I will trim the fret ends with flush-cutting pliers and trim them down with files specially mounted in a wood block, so the ends are smooth when playing.

When I’m satisfied, I will seep super thin CyanoAcrylate glue from a fine (1mm) nozzle into one end of each fret. It will wick the whole length. I have to be careful not to put too much in or I will have leakage from the other end of the fret onto the neck wood.

I know some will question my use of a torque gauge, Some clever luthiers just tighten the head till it sounds “right”.
All I can say is, I’m not that clever. What I need is even tightness of bolts, and, yes, I know that one bolt may bind more than another, but in many years of doing this I’ve found that it’s a lot better than guessing.

Of course I tighten across the head, “side to side”, not “round the edge”.

The classic way to tighten a head, of course, is to tighten it till it just splits, then back it off 1/8 of a turn!

Here’s the new Geared (4:1 ratio) Planetary Tuning Pegs. These are Leader pegs from Eagle Music. I have used these several times and never had a problem. Eagle Music are reliable and deliver quickly. ‘Planetary’ refers to the way cogwheels circle around a central shaft inside the casing of the Tuner. Very clever!

To fit them in, I had to ream out the original peg holes from 6mm to 10 mm. Some people use special reamers for this job, but I find a succession of very sharp drill bits mounted on some sort of handle works well. I used a small locking grip as a handle.

Once the hole is the correct size, it is a simple job to install the new Tuning Pegs. Make sure the locking nut and cylindrical screw go down tightly from the front, or you can get buzzing, or even a Peg coming apart!

At last it’s all assembled. The neck angle had to be slightly adjusted, then I spent some time setting up the bridge height, and then cutting the nut grooves to give a nice low action. You always need to do it in that order – neck angle, bridge height, nut slots, or one change will destroy the effect of a previous one.

The strings I used were Puretone Irish Tenor Banjo String Set, Heavy Gauge 13, 20w, 30w, 40w from Eagle Music.

This instrument is a very short neck – 20 inches scale length – so it needs what would be heavy gauge strings on another instrument to play like medium gauge on this. Getting this wrong would lead to the strings rattling on the frets when played vigorously. (Which is how all the banjo players I know tend to play!)