Reset dowel to achieve good neck angle
Setup to play

Clearing out old glue. and changing the angle of the hole a bit
 

Profiling the dowel so that it will drop down on the nose and give it the angle it needs

Dowel is now angled downward and maple shims are made to drive into t e topside after glue is added to hold it into place

The additional weight will help it cure at the angle I want.
Glue and shims in place,..... cure time
 

Now I will add a pin horizontal in thru the heel cap to maintain the angle and help retain the dowel.

Pinned with square brass tubing that will not be hidden.
tubing allows you to easily drill out if in fact you do want to remove the dowel with heat

Fingerboard is lifting, needs a little glue
 

moving the location of the front pin to better center it on the rim, which is offset  a bit

One main caveat is the fully extended high crown head.
 

It will not allow the neck to rise and even use this notch so I will modify it all in such a way that the instrument will function properly and  the notch will no longer be a factor.
It will be setup to utilize a medium crown head as optimum, and low in an emergency as well as high
Many of these low end banjos are in need of such mods.
 
 
 

All I have here is a low crown Fiberskyn in Remo 10" ut that will be better than what is on it and allow the modifications to work now.
 

Starting the cutout on the tension hoop to allow the fingerboard to clear at the new neck angle

Sometimes major changes make things work as they should with the parts they furnish

The low crown will barely work but it will work which means I can move forward.
 Now if I push it up into the notch it goes too high so that dowel will be fixed and that will be that.

Repairing the dowel
A little excess glue to remove on fboard

Pulled all the way, the low crown leaves a fairly high hoop and with an armrest, many folks like this for playability
 a Medium crown would lower it another 1/8"

Neck angle is now alot better so setup will continue

Plenty of clearance for a higher neckset, thats all good now.

Glueing in the frets, they are sucking in glue like water.
The biggest killer of tone, .......the board is dried all the way out and pulled from the frets.
The ends are showing and will be smoothed
 

Sealed, now blackening with Fiebig's
 

dressing edges

and ends
Ill dye it once more now after I steel wool it all.

Test bridge time

Got one around 9/16 thats giving close to what I want

Now with this bridge and neck angle I am almost there..
plenty of room for medium crown head, can use a low, the instrument is more user friendly by far, tone is pretty darn good
 

Tuners are upside down
gears go to the bottom on these
 

Spacings about what i want

 
This bridge I made will ride home with it.
And I modified a Gibson style armrest for it, the most comfortable

 The tailpiece has just enough downforce but would have a little more with medium crown, it drops with the hoop.
Some sort of downforce tailpiece might change something,,,,,,,but to me, its pretty nice tone for one of these.
 I also like it with a rag stuff up on to the dowel for a muted tone
I will adjust it in some more, work the action down a tad more, and home it will head.
It needs Thomastik -Enfield strings to make it a real smooth player
Thanks for watching,
Vinnie