Here's an old 19th century George Matthews banjo that I had in for repair. Originally a fretless, then at some point somebody fitted frets and messed with the neck angle making a contraption with which to adjust it. Then later on someone decided to make it fretless again.
The action was terrible to be almost unplayable, it wouldn't stay in tune and the dowel rod had lots of holes and filler from previous tinkerings.
I repaired the dowel rod, re set the neck to have no angle - as it was when it was made - and reamed out the warn tuner holes and fitted Pegheds geared tuners.
Using the original side dots as fret guides it turned out this was a big ole 28" scale... and it sounded just as big.
Comments