Replacing the Head and Tuners on 1924 Weymann Model 180 Tenor Banjo

I'm going to banjo camp. Wait. Banjo camp?

It's true. On a whim, I signed up for banjo camp, where I will be immersed for three days in tenor banjo instruction. There are other courses - guitar, old-time banjo, etc., but I saw this as an opportunity to get some real experience on tenor. Partially because in addition to a couple of tenor banjos, I own some tenor guitars, which you may have read about. The tuning is the same, so I figured "why not?"

Now, the Weymann Model 180 I acquired a while back has a semi-opaque head on it, which I just don't care for. So I set about changing it, and cleaning it up before I take off to (still can't believe I'm writing this) banjo camp.

I also decided to put new tuners on it since the original friction tuners were not real pleasant to use. It would be quite embarrassing if I couldn't keep my banjo in tune while in class with actual banjo players.

Here's the banjo with the old head. The tone is fine, but I'm not wild about the way you can sort of see through it. So let's change it, shall we?

Take the strings and bridge off, then loosen and remove the hooks. I'm undoing the screw for the tailpiece here, but the hooks come off the same way. Not rocket surgery.

You can see my fabulous Hall banjo wrench here, highly recommended. It has three different size sockets to fit the most common nuts on a banjo.

The head and hoop come right off.

If you're just changing the head, you won't need to take all of the hooks off, but I want to polish them up, so I'm taking them all off.

At about this point in the process I think of my friend who is an Actual Real Banjo Player (unlike me) who says "Banjos are just a bunch of parts." How true.

I can't tell you how much I love my guitar vise. I use it all the time - perfect for a job like this. It made it easy to get at the hooks for removal.

Here are the hooks and tailpiece on the bench about to be polished. Probably a good idea, judging from that green gunk on one of the hooks.

I've been wanting to try a polishing attachment on the Dremel, so this was a good opportunity. The attachment works well for small parts, but it does get loaded up quickly, which means you need a couple of them for this kind of job.

But the tone ring looks a lot better than it did. So much easier than polishing by hand.

All shiny now. Some of the tarnish is still on the parts, but overall it's much better. My general philosophy on vintage instruments is to get them looking like a well-maintained piece, and not do anything major (such as refinishing or parts replacement) unless it's absolutely necessary.

I also recrowned and polished the frets. They're in good shape, but looked a bit flat on the tops.

One other thing which I didn't photograph is the fingerboard rejuvenation. I hit it with three applications of Stew-Mac Fingerboard Finishing Oil. The stuff is fantastic. The board kept drinking it up, which is why I did three applications. You'll see how good it looks later on.

And I used Virtuoso Cleaner and Polish for all of the wood.

I mentioned new tuners as well.

I would have loved to put Waverly or other high end tuners on, but they are way too expensive. So I procured a nice set of Five Star Planet tuners.

They come in a really nice box, just like Waverlys. (Waverlies?)

The old tuners come out by undoing the tension screw.

The Five Star tuners mount in a 3/8 inch hole, and the existing holes on the Weymann were a bit smaller than that - maybe by 1/32 or so.

It was a bit too much of a size difference to try and file or sand inside the hole, so I went on the Interwebs to try and find another method.

I read on the Lumberjocks site (TMD's favorite woodworking site) about this method.

Make a template/guide by drilling the hole size you need in a scrap piece of wood, then position it exactly over the old hole.

I put a caul on the bottom to reduce chipping, and used guitar making clamps to hold it in place.

Then drill into the old hole using a bit of the size you need.

The resulting sawdust was a bit scary looking, until I realized the peghead is a sandwich of maple over a core of red and brown binding material.

The holes were perfect, with a tiny amount of chips out of the wood. I forgot to take a shot of the finished holes, duh.

The new tuners dropped into place and bolted up perfectly. And they look great.

Now we can put the head on and finish this up.

Installing the head is the reverse of removing it. Be sure to measure the banjo carefully to determine the size you need - use the old one as a guide. A lot of banjos take an 11 inch head, but some older ones may be different. (This one does take an 11 inch head).

Line up the label where you want it to be positioned - I wanted mine under the tailpiece.

The head may not sit down over the rim at first, but when you start tightening hooks, it will slide down. If it doesn't, you may have the wrong size head.

The polished hooks are lined up on the bench ready to be reinstalled.

I put a touch of anti-seize compound on the threads. Maybe not necessary but I have it on hand for car stuff so I thought it might be a good idea.

Almost forgot to show this.

Note that the hoop has a cutout where it lines up with the neck, so the strings can clear it.

Put all the hooks back on and tighten them up a bit.

Use a star pattern when tightening - do one, then the one across the banjo, etc., as you would tightening up lugs on a car wheel. Anti-seize, parts and star pattern, just like a car. It is just parts.

With the hooks and the tailpiece on, we can restring it and then place the bridge.

Measure the distance from the nut to the 12th fret. Then take that distance, measure from the 12th fret toward the tailpiece. The resulting point is the location of the bridge.

You can do that with a ruler, but I have a saddle placement tool I like to use. The tool has a rod with a moveable block on it.

Place the large end of the tool at the nut, then adjust the small end to fit over the 12th fret.

Then turn the tool around. Put the small end on the 12th fret, and then the large end will locate your saddle. You can see there are small hooks on the tool - these are to place a guitar saddle, but here we use those to line up the bridge.

The hooks are adjustable for different scale lengths - I didn't move them here since the whole bridge can be moved easily on the banjo to fine tune the intonation. But the location of the hooks - and consequently the location of a saddle are critical on a guitar.

Once the bridge is in place, you can tune the banjo and move the bridge as needed to get the intonation set on the low (C) and high (A) strings. I found my original location was within a couple of millimeters either way.

You can also tension the head to your liking at this point - check the intonation again since the string height will be affected and the intonation may change a small amount.

I probably won't use them again, but I stashed the old tuners away in the Five Star box so I won't lose them.

And finally some requisite beauty shots in the garden.

The finished banjo. I went with Remo Fiberskyn, which looks more like an actual skin head, but is modern plastic.

The Weymann badge on the inside of the resonator.

I was curious about the "PATENTED" stamp. A Google Patent Search yielded this design patent, which I am assuming is the one which applies to this banjo design. And there is also another Weymann patent that applies to the tailpiece specifically.

I had thought the tailpiece on my banjo appears to have had a cover originally, but which is now gone. And in looking at the patent drawing, that seems to be the case - there is a cover drawn on the final patent document.

It turns out that Harry Weymann had these 6 patents in total issued. Very interesting. One of them, issued in 1922, is for a geared tuner. Clearly this banjo never had these installed, but I wonder if other Weymann models - perhaps more expensive ones - had them?

Back view with the resonator on.

The new tuners. I bought a set of amber colored knobs too, so I can change them at some point. But right now I'm liking the pearloid knobs. Very much in line with the rest of the banjo's appearance.

The tuners are wonderful - very smooth and with 4:1 gearing they are much easier to use than the original tuners, which were 1:1 ratio, making it hard to tune accurately.

The vine inlay on the face of the peghead.

And the fingerboard inlays.

The board was a sort of faded brown to start with. After the application of the finishing oil, it's much darker and looks good.

And note the yellowed lacquer on the binding...I love that look.