Frets were pulling up and put, fingerboard was cupped in the center.
Well, really there is no fingerboard, frets were jut driven into the mahogany neck
I will level it and reslot
 

 
All leveling complete, 1/16 removed

Rim cleaned and fresh coat of finish
Its a very thin 1/4" x 11/1/8" rim and all the shoes have pulled thru it
It also has a piece of celluloid thats used as an archring, that will not be reinstalled, its pretty useless.
I will washer it up on both sides to make up the diff

Shoes polished

Neck finish added, fingerboard restrained and lacquered, slots deepened, fretwork started

I added a little stain over the edges, to look like binding
I scored the fingerboard with 220 grit before I tinted  and lacquered the fboard to make the stain pull and look like woodgrain.......pretty good too.
Fancy huh?

Completing the compression fretting

The resonator was not the same color at all, so it will be redone, it is now stripped and ready

Reassembling the reverse geared tuners.
They are never very good on anything I have seen in the past and these will just be on there because they came on it and I have no idea how this thing will play out.

Lubed and as good as they can be.

Strung with light gauges, the neck is now at least playable
New nut installed

Setup with adjustable test bridge, the banjo has been deemed "unplayable"

The rim is so thin, and the setup so hard on it that when you rest your arm on the armrest and hit a note and move at all, the tone goes up and down like you are on a whammy bar or vibrato.
There is no touching the armrest ....period
I did not give it alot of hope after seeing the rim size and maybe I can someday use the neck on another project and make that thin rim into a low tension gut string fretless banjo or something it can handle.
No need to add finish to the resonator, we are done on this path.

You never know until you try, and its always a learning experience and something to try new tricks on.
Thanks for watching
Vinnie