New member with questions about refurbishing a Windsor premier number 2

[Tony Mear]

Good morning from Cardiff. A new member here, been playing banjo thirty odd years but often feels as if I've been playing thirty odd days! First bluegrass and more lately old time clawhammer. Anyway, I've acquired a Windsor Premier number 2 in decent rather than pristine condition. It has a monarch resonator on it . I've put some CE nylon strings on it and I think it sounds great and I've been having fun torturing myself with some classic tablature!

Unfortunately, as often seems to be the case, some miscreant has made a rather misguided attempt to lower the action by filing v shaped grooves in the nut. I suspect he's also had a go at the heel as well because, while the heel fits snugly at the bottom, there seems to be a wedge shaped gap from about the top of the dowel stick to the fingerboard. He had adjusted the screw adjuster at the end of the dowel stick to its maximum and suspect that he needed to shave the neck joint to stop it binding, but I'm not sure, so here is my first question; should the heel fit snugly top to bottom or was there originally a space left to allow for adjustment of the action?

I will be handing it over to an excellent luthier friend (who knows and plays classic banjo himself) to work on it for me and, having seen some of his violin repair work I'm confident he can deal with the issue.

Second question: looking at the gap between the end of the fingerboard and the tension hoop, there looks to be what appear to be two grub screws in the tension hoop? I can't see clearly but does that sound familiar to anyone? They look like they could be there to maintain a gap between the fingerboard and tension hoop? Again I can't see clearly.

Question three. The dowel stick has the ebony wedge type brace. I've never really liked these. Perhaps my opinion is coloured by experiences with bottom end banjos made this way, but would there be any advantage of fitting a vega style brace? I think the banjo is a player instrument rather than a collectors instrument so I'm not too bothered about maintaining originality.

Question four. Tuners. I don't think I can live with the friction pegs, can anybody recommend some geared ones?

And finally... Recommendations for a first tutor book please?

Sorry for the essay :) pictures attached.

Tony

[Tony Mear]

Not sure if pics uploaded?

[Tony Mear]

Only one pic per post?

[thereallyniceman]

Hi Tony,

Welcome to CB Ning

You can indeed add multiple pics into a discussion post, but you are not adding the files the correct way.

You have "attached" a file, which allows people to download it, but it will not display in the discussion.

To display a picture:

Click the button as shown here:

Then select the file from your computer and add the image:

Repeat, and Hey Presto... multiple images in the post.

[Tony Mear]

Ah, thank you, I don't see those option, perhaps because I'm posting from a ipad?