I wound up having to use a hammer to get the stud back into place, this damaged some of the woodfiller on the inside so I had to stop and fix that then spray over that. Next up as the tailpiece.
I'd've liked to have electroplated the tailpiece again as the presumably nickel was rather worn but finding a couple of pieces of pure nickel to use as anode and cathode proved impossible locally and too expensive to order online so I gave up on that. The tailpiece is in two parts, the piece the strings attach to which is all the majority of Zither Banjos and Zither Mandolin Banjos I've sen online have and a second piece of metal which goes between this and the wooden pot. The large metal bracket appears to be there to maintain the shape of the pot against the poll of the strings. I've seen this on one other banjo I've seen on the net. Using a small flat headed screwdriver and an adjustable wrench I replaced both parts. They still fitted the original screw holes despite my having reglued the pot. There's a gap of almost 1mm between the top of the pot and the edge of the tailpiece from when I sanded the rim flat again.
Using a right angled torque screwdriver I reattached the neck. Messing about with difficult to reach slotted screws gives you a new appreciation for the crosshead screws.
I have tweeked guitars and banjos and now a friend has asked me to have another look at a 100 year old zither mandolin banjo. I took it apart a three or four years ago and put a new vellum on it. At the time I could see that the pot to neck connection was suspect and choose not to do anything to it.
ReplyDeleteIt has now reappeared. The issue is the action at the twelfth fret is about 6.5 mm which of course is more then double what it should be. The problem is the connection which is as I remember a large slotted head wood screw. The socket for the screw is worn resulting in the neck being pulled up etc.
I am familiar with co-ordinator rods and dowel sticks on banjos but have no knowledge of Man/do/zithers.
I am thinking the solution would be to drill out the existing hole as little as possible then fix with resin/epoxy into the neck an approprate female threaded slug. I could then resecure the neck at the right angle either with or hopefully without shims.
Have you any advice to give me ?
Thanks & regards
James s jones