I recently refurbished an old no-name piccolo banjo. A previous owner had embellished it with all sorts of plastic and glass doo-dads. It really was gaudy, and the work was very sloppy. Divots had been dug (literally) in the peghead and fretboard for the inlays. It was fitted with violin type friction pegs; but the pegholes were wallowed out so badly that I plugged them, redrilled and installed mechanical friction tuners. The busted skin head was replaced by one of Bill Miller's vellum processed heads. The original head tensioning system seemed to work ok; but the entire pot is only 6 inches in diameter. Adding the system with the ring reduced the effective head size to about 4 1/2 inches. With the system installed there was just not enough head left to vibrate; so I decided not to install it. The dowel was already loose; so it was a simple job to reset it. At the suggestion from another BHO thread, I installed classic Nylgut strings. The banjo is suprisingly loud; but also pretty shrill. I have seen the head tensioning system before; but I have not been able to identify who might have made it.
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