Banjo headstock fixes, and flattening some back pieces

Well, once again I have several days of work to cover .


First, a few days ago I managed to get the headstock glued together on the tenor banjo.

The headstock cracks look much worse now that the thing has been cleaned.

All the supplies are ready - glue, gloves, clamps, knife, acetone, and paper towels. The acetone cleans up the CA glue nicely.

I didn't skimp - I poured glue on, and worked the cracks open and closed a few times to work the glue in.

Then some clamps, and a wipe with acetone, and it is ready to sit for a while.

The next day, I put some thought into the back of the Favilla baritone uke. I needed to flatten the back pieces so that I could try to get them to mate back together.

I set up the go-bar deck, wet the back, and clamped it flat. It didn't work - the piece was still curled.

I also spent some time making a bow reharing jig. It was slow work carving. I'm making progress though.

So, two days ago, I used a different strategy to flatten the baritone back.

That is a granite surface plate on a barbecue. Yummy. No, actually, I'm heating up just enough to be too warm to touch for long, but no warmer. I then wet the baritone back, and clamped it down.

I  added a sheet of absorbent cloth to wick the water away, and clamped the heck out of the back. It took a couple of hours for the heat of the granite block to dissipate. I left it clamped up for two days to really allow it to dry and flatten out.

This leads up to today's work. Of course, being summer, I was also taking my son to camps, visiting friends, and going to swim practice. But when I had a couple opportunities, I got some work done.

I was very happy with this - when I took the back piece out of the clamps, it was almost dead flat. There is a lot of fluff stuck to the old glue, but that is no big deal.

I'm sure it will want to curl up again, so I clamped it to a flat piece of wood for storage.

I then proceeded to clamp the other side to hot granite.

I cut a couple of overly-large patches for the top of the baritone uke. Again, these cracks are ready to pop apart and curl up, so I want the extra acreage to keep things flat and happy.

I need to put a handle on this - my new violin maker's knife! What a sweet thing it is too.

I was going to clamp the busted pieces back to the front, but I decided to wait and do this a different way - I want to be able to see them when they are clamped, so I'll use some acrylic for a clamping surface.

Since the bridge is still on, I have to raise the uke on some boards to keep the bridge away from pressure.

I love the amount of pressure this thing develops.

Turning my attention back to the tenor banjo, I decided to go ahead and drill out the holes.

This bit is about the size of the rod.

"Before I kill you, Mr. Bond..." The mill vise helps here, because I can position the neck perfectly for drilling.

It works!

Those are some big holes.

Same routine as the other day - acetone if I need it, and some thick CA glue.

I made a puddle of CA glue on a discarded plastic bag,

I put some glue on a cotton swab,

And put the glue in the holes.

I then was able to install the rods without any nasty squeeze out. Not bad.

Then it was time to cut the rods flush. Kind of a pain.

Slow, finicky work.

Pretty close, I carved them the rest of the way with a couple of flat chisels.

I then failed to take pictures of drilling new holes in the rod. It did not go very smoothly - I might redo a couple of holes, we'll see. Or I might mix up some CA glue and a lot of ebony dust and fill in some flaws. We'll see.

Tomorrow, Ray and I will be working on the basses again. Oh boy!