Banjo Head

Put a new head on the banjo today. First time was definitely a learning experience. It only took three times to get it right.

Here are the pieces ready while the head is soaking in water.The wood pot with metal rim on it. The flesh hoop and tension hoop are laying on the table. I reused the old flesh hoop from the head that was taken off by soaking it in water and scraping the skin off the wire. All the hooks, nuts, and metal parts were soaked in Naval Jelly and cleaned up.

The skin soaked for about twenty minutes to get it pliable. Here it is placed over the pot with the flesh hoop and the tension hoop laying over it.

That was the easy part. The difficult part is getting the skin around the flesh hoop and under the tension hoop. This took a couple of tries (and some cussing) to get  the correct method figured out. All the reading on how it is done does not replace actually doing it, making mistakes and doing again.

Here it is with the skin trimmed off at the top of the tension ring.

Now to let it dry for a few days before tightening the tension hoop down.In the mean time the fretboard needs new frets, some loose areas glued down, and sanding done to it.