Hi, Gang--
I was lucky enough to come by a pretty nice '37 TB-1 recently and I am now planning to have a neck made. I have tentatively decided not to add a tone ring yet, as I have heard Craig Smith play his Style 1 with no tone ring and it sounded great, leaning in favor of the argument that the rim has more to do with the sound than the tone ring as far as I am concerned. On the other hand, Curtis McPeake was of the opinion when I asked him that this banjo might be too quiet to cut it in an all-out jam without a tone ring in it; so, I may add one in the future. My question is then whether or not addition of a tone ring in the future will affect the fit of the neck I am going to have made now, vis-vis, is the rim going to end up at the same depth into the resonator or will it need to move a little to accommodate the addition of a tone ring, making it necessary to reposition the neck/lag bolts?
Thanks for any thoughts.
Happy trails,
Randy in Germantown, TN