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I need to do some fret leveling on a banjo with no truss rod and a neck that's up-bowed. With a straight edge spanning the 1st to last fret, there's a .020" gap over the 7th. Sighting the neck reveals that most of the bend is around the 7th fret, but it's not quite straight either above or below that area either.

All my fret-leveling experience to date has been on guitar necks that I can straighten with the truss rod, so this is a new one for me. I have a couple thoughts on how I might go about it. One is to do a little creative clamping of the neck on my workbench and see if I can get the playing surface straight, then proceed as normal. The other is basically to just work with a short sanding block and a lot of attention to evenly removing material from the fret tops as I work up and down the board. I might even make a block that has a very slight radius in it to ride the curvature of the neck.

Before I begin, though, if any of you have any experience with this, tips to share, etc, I'm all ears and I'll be your friend forever.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

I rarely use an adjustable rod in my banjo necks--I always use carbon fiber anyway, and prefer the lighter weight of no steel added...But that does require some additional work when adding some neck relief and leveling frets. I use a jig pretty much like the creative clamping you mention. I clamp the dowelstick end of the neck down securely to one end of a piece of steel U channel, put a neck support at the seventh fret or so, and then start applying pressure at the nut slot until I measure the amount of relief I want in the neck. On a straight neck, this means inducing some back bow, but on an already relieved neck it will mean pulling it flat. Then I level the fingerboard and later frets in the normal way. This leaves a perfect continuous relief arch (which is what I'm trying for on a banjo neck--I don't add any relief at the bass side end of fingerboard). It should work well for leveling frets on your neck too. I've had rotten luck trying the short block approach, but that could just be me....

Dave

Are you going to try to take the relief out by just fret leveling?

You may need to clamp the neck up to simulate string tension, then level the frets,
or,
maybe a compression re-fret is in order.

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https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008907949110

No, David, the existing relief will remain unless I work on straightening the neck, which I don't think is worth doing.

I just came back from a benefit event with several great bands. I gotta tell ya, my home town is blessed with some amazing talent. Anyway, among the bands were two rockin' old time string bands, and both banjo players had their banjos set up with super high action. 1/4" or more at the 12th. One of these players, Richie Stearns, who plays with The Horse Flies, Natalie Merchant, the Bubba Geaorge String Band, and a couple other bands, and the band at this event - the Evil City String Band, plays all the way up the neck a lot. His inventive playing takes him all over the fretboard constantly, and the high action is clearly no hindrance at all. He likes it that way. With action that high, it doesn't really matter whether the neck is straight or bowed.

I've thought about compression fretting, but I think a somewhat high relief and somewhat high action will be fine. I'll put a 1/2" bridge on in place of the 5/8", and I'll just play it, get used to it, and discover its advantages. The action will be about 1/16" lower than it was before, when I played it a lot. I can always work on it more in the future, if I decide to.

The dowel stick is indeed integral to the neck, by the way, and there is no way to reset the neck or otherwise change its angle without surgery that I think is better left undone.

Thanks again to everybody -

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Thanks, Dave, for your continued input!

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

If you want to go crazy, you could pull the fretboard and install some carbon fiber rods in the neck, reglue the fretboard, defret, level the board and refret it, then you can level the frets in a predictable way. We have done that to several unruly banjos in the last few years, or just made new necks for the really funky ones.

If you are not looking for a "learning experience" (lots of work for questionable gain), you can probably get away without doing much of anything, high action and lots of relief mean that string buzzing wont be much of an issue, so perfectly level frets are not totally required. Creatively clamping the neck and then leveling sounds pretty good.

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

Thanks for your input, Jordan. Much appreciated.

I may do all that neck work at some point in the future, but I think I'll let it go for now. I'm likely to string it up and play it for a while before I even get around to doing anything to the frets, actually. But they ought to be leveled (more or less) before too long.

Just an aside - the maker of this banjo hurled insults at me when I mentioned that I was thinking of putting CF rods in as part of a plan to straighten and stabilize the neck. I guess I offended his traditionalist sensibilities. CF rods in an old time banjo??!! Heaven forbid! He went on to say that the neck couldn't possibly be warped as I described it, as if his necks ALWAYS stay perfectly straight and don't need no stinkin' truss rod, the obvious implication being that I am a complete moron and can't sight a neck or use a straight edge. Interesting fellow... almost gave me such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to throw his banjo on the fire; but, no, it's MY banjo, and I'll do as I see fit, and enjoy the heck out of the dang thing.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Yeah it always leaves me worried when someone says "i built it perfectly so it should stay perfect", it just never works out that way. I have had several nice handmade instruments come through my shop for repairs (instead of back to the builder) because the owner was afraid to tell the builder that they broke it and risk making him cranky. Stuff happens, especially to necks without reinforcement, to say "the old ones didn't have carbon fiber rods in them" doesn't really fly because the old ones(that have not been modified or shored up in some way) are mostly bowed and unplayable, although there are plenty of exceptions out there.

One thing builders could keep in mind is that the average musician takes care of their instrument the way toddlers take care of pets, they love them to death but don't necessarily understand the finer points of keeping them in good shape. A customer recently called us because his guitar was showing signs of drying out, and asked us what he should do in the meantime until he could get it to us for a checkup, we recommended putting a humidifier in the case. When the guitar got to us inside the case there was a plastic bag with holes punched in it, full of about 30 silica packets, the ones that are meant to keep stuff DRY, that's what we meant, right? Daaaghhhh

Sorry for the highjack, and i'm not trying to imply that you are a banjo killing maniac, it just puts me off when someone says "it shouldn't be bowed"... because it is bowed, you cant argue with reality(and win).

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

Are you wanting to pull the neck straight and then level? You could make something like a neck jig. Set the banjo on the bench and clamp the body down. Put a piece of wood the correct heigth under the neck at the dip of the bow and push down on the head till it's level and somehow tie the head in that position with another block below the nut. If you are familliar with the StewMac neck jig this might make sense. You could put a crude one together with a 2 X 4 and a piece of Plywood.

Clamping it along those lines is what I had in mind, Chris. Thanks for your input. The "vote of confidence" from several of you on using that method helps me know I'm on the right track.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Maybe this was mentioned, but---

If you use a short stone or glue fine wet/dry paper to a block of wood, you will find that it follows the curve of the neck, but also knocks the high spots down on the frets. So, if you are not able to temorarily bend the neck back to your satisfaction, as some of the others mentioned, you might want to try this.

Thanks. It sounds like you've had success with that method, so that's good to hear. That'll be the back-up plan.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Maybe you have one of these.
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Speci ... Files.html
And this should help with some ideas.
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Speci ... ml#details
Some blocks on the work bench and some eye hooks and nylon straps and your ready to go.

Thanks for the ideas, Chris.

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/