Posts Tagged ‘banjo parts’
D-Tuners
Earl Scruggs learned to play the 5-string banjo on an instrument that belonged to his older brother Junie. The banjo did not always stay in tune well, and the young virtuoso found himself having to retune mid-song. Scruggs’s musical inventiveness took it from there, and he soon adapted that mid-song tuning sound into his developing style. After recording his first tuner instrumental Earl’s Breakdown in 1951, Scruggs decided a little mechanical help would make playing a lot easier. He installed a pair of cams onto his banjo peghead that raised and lowered the second and third strings to preset pitches. The most common settings are for the second string to lower from B to A and the third string to lower from G to F#, moving the banjo from G tuning to D tuning and giving the devices the common name “D-tuners”.
Scruggs’s new innovation was soon featured in such instrumentals as Flint Hill Special, Foggy Mountain Chimes, and Randy Lynn Rag. D-tuners soon became required equipment for any aspiring bluegrass banjoist. Melodic banjo pioneer Bill Keith took things the next step with a design that incorporated conventional second- and third-string tuners and the stop-setting mechanism in one unit, making it no longer necessary to drill extra holes in the peghead. Keith tuners became the standard in the banjo world with over 30,000 sold to date and are still manufactured by Bill Keith in Woodstock, New York. Players seeking the unique feel and sound of traditional cam-type tuners now have another option available in a new product called Cheat-A-Keys, which use the cam mechanism but are easily interchangeable between banjos and don’t require alteration of the peghead.
This is the first in a mini-series devoted to parts and setup of a modern five-string bluegrass banjo. In this post, we define the major assemblies of the banjo and each component within those assemblies. In future posts we will expand on each of these and on the role each part plays in the setup process.
Pot Assembly:
- Rim – a hoop made of wood or metal that all other parts attach to. Three-ply maple is preferred on high-end banjos.
- Tone Ring – usually constructed of metal, preferably bell-bronze; this part rests on top of the rim and amplifies string vibration.
- Flange – usually constructed of metal (brass or pot metal); this part surrounds the rim and serves as the bottom support for tensioning the head as well as for attachment of the resonator.
- Coordinating Rods – these metal rods span from the bottom to the top of the rim and serve to attach the neck to the pot assembly.
- Head – originally made of calf skin, modern heads are made of mylar. This sits on top of the tone ring and serves as the soundboard of the banjo.
- Tension Hoop – usually made of metal, this sits on top of the head and evenly distributes tension to the head when tightened properly.
- Bracket Hooks – these are individual hooks that span the space between the tension hoop and the flange. These are used to adjust head tension.
- Tailpiece – located at the end of the banjo, on the pot assembly; this serves as a place to attach strings and is adjusted for down pressure on the bridge.
- Bridge – usually made of maple with an ebony top; the main purpose is to transfer string vibration to the head. It also holds the strings in place and can be moved to adjust intonation.
Resonator:
- Usually made of wood; the resonator is a bowl-shaped device that attaches to the back side of the banjo and projects sound forward.
- Wall Lugs – made of metal; these attach to the inside wall of the resonator and serve as a nut to receive the resonator thumb screws
- L-Bracket – these are actually L-shaped metal brackets that are mounted under the flange and attached to the rim. This is the attachment hardware that holds the resonator to the pot assembly.
- Resonator Thumb Screws – made of metal; these pass through the flange and L-bracket to secure the pot assembly to the resonator.
Neck:
- The neck and resonator are usually made from the same type of wood. The neck serves as a playing surface.
- Lag Bolts – these are threaded into the wooden heel of the neck, pass through the rim and connect to the coordinating rods that attach the neck to the pot assembly.
- Truss Rod – this is built into the interior of the neck, spanning the length of the neck and located in a routed channel under the fretboard. The truss rod applies pressure to counteract the pull of the strings.
- Fingerboard – a piece of wood laminted to the front of the neck that holds the frets and decorative inlay. This is the part of the neck that is in contact with the fingertips of the fretting hand.
- Frets – these are the metal bars typically made of nickel-silver and inlaid crossways into the fingerboard. They serve to stop the vibration of the string at the desired note.
- Nut – usually made of bone (plastic on entry-level banjos). This separates the strings a specific width and holds the strings a specific height above the fingerboard.
- Peghead – often shaped like a fiddle body; located at the opposite end of the neck from the pot, the peghead is a part of the neck and serves as a place to mount tuning pegs.
- Tuning pegs – usually geared, tuning pegs serve to tighten the strings to pitch. Guitar-style tuning pegs have tuning knobs on the sides of the peghead, and planetary tuning pegs go straight out the back.
- Inlay – decorative designs typically cut from mother-of-pearl or abalone which ornament the peghead and fingerboard and serve as position markers.
- Binding – decorative strips, usually of plastic, running along the sides of the neck and resonator.