This is a story of how I turned a dog of a guitjo into a really great sounding instrument I want to play all the time. If you have one gathering dust you might want to read this.
My 6 string banjo, a Deering D6, had been sitting in its case since we got to to the US. This instrument, like all the banjo family I suspect, seemed to have mind of its own. Like a wayward teenager it soon embarked on the road to ruination, due largely to parental ignorance and neglect. I always saw its potential and became determined to save it from itself.
Playability was never an issue, Deering have done a great job with the construction. Volume has always been copious, well it is a banjo-like instrument after all. The major problem was tone. It was extremely hard work listening to it. Audio studies indicate that most likely there were boosted frequencies present that the brain dislikes. Damping under- and on top of the head just made the awfulness less loud. So what to do.
It had a Deering frosted plastic head on it. I'd tried various heads. Tailpiece positioning for string break angle over the saddle I'd likewise tried everything. Swapping out strings and tinkering with head tensioning and tuning, no dice.
So this weekend I sourced a new head for it, an 11" high crown Remo Fibreskyn head. Then I read the Deering manual that came with the instrument.
I took off the old head, still splattered with blood from a gig I did with Mick Knight, hung it on the shed wall for a souvenir, and gave all the metal bits a good clean. Removed the Fishman pickup since I've never really used it on account of it sounding awful. This also allowed me to take the pickup's metal shim off the bottom of the bridge thereby reducing the number of variables.
I put a smidge of bicycle chain oil (modern high-tech version) around the top outside lip of the tone ring to reduce friction when tightening down the head. I then put on the head and tension ring, hooked up the hook bolts and hand-tightened all the way round until the head popped nicely down onto the tone ring ready for more serious tightening. Using a 1/4" nut driver I started from the first neck hook nut turning about one full turn (Deering says do a half turn but you'd be there all day) working sequentially around and around them all.
I'd always had trouble in the past getting the head tightened up evenly; tapping would reveal different tones around the edge. This time though as it approached being tight I noticed I could look down the barrel of the nuts and see the end of the hook shank coming up. Eureka. Instead of trying to judge even-tightness by sound I could do it visually. Piece of cake.
When a couple of the nuts creaked when turned I set all the rest to approximately the same remaining depth in the holes. In my case there was about an 1/8" left before the end of the hook thread reached level with the face of the nut.
Tapped the head, all seemed about right so I put on the tailpiece. Followed the manual and set it to about 1/8" parallel to the head. Put on two strings loosely to hold the bridge while I positioned it. Once again per the manual I set it at exactly 26 3/16" inches from the banjo nut. This turned out to be exactly correct, intonation is terrific. Scale length is 26 1/4" BTW. Put on the rest of the strings (Martin SP Lights I happen to have around since I prefer them for guitar) and tuned her up.
Suffice to say I've been walking around the house playing silly jazz and blues tunes on it ever since. The Fibreskyn head I think makes the biggest single improvement but careful setup 'by the book' really helps. I hope this helps somebody out there.
