Headstock repair on a Banjo Mandolin

zohn · 2012-04-19T16:47:46+00:00

My mate Gerrit got this little interesting instrument as a gift and showed me what appeared to be a loose headplate. He asked me if I could take it home and take a closer look and see if it could be fixed. I suggested we heated the plate up at his place, which we did and I removed it, then took it home, cleaned it up somewhat and discovered there was indeed a headstock crack which was thankfully repairable. ? It is a British made G.H.& S model 14S, and from a bit of Googling, seems like these were made in the 1920’s. Preparing some hide glue to do the job - the brass is to keep the warm water (heating agent) at temperature longer This is a plated copper strip which will be put on the headstock to heat it up, to ensure better flow of the glue into the joint I didn't have enough time on hand to photograph the gluing process, here the joint is glued, clamped and excess glue is wiped away I left it like that for 2 days, and then heated up the headplate, smeared fresh glue on both the headstock surface and the headplate, alligned the holes with 6mm dowel sticks and clamped it up again Cleaned up and oiled the headplate and the fret board Then put the machines back - I had to plug most of the screw holes, and Gerrit is pushing new pilot holes into the plugs for the screws Made and fitted a brand new nut - this is now a "Banjolele" by Gerrit's request, and will be fitted with 4 nylon strings. Strings fitted, tuned up and a happy customer! It sounds great in his hands too....

chilliepot

Nice repair job. I like it!

arjunmenon

Nice job Zohn!
Very Stewmac like pic-story ?
Awesome stuff.

DDR4LYF

That is great, but it looks like there are only four strings on it, but space for 8. I'm assuming that it is supposed to take 8 strings...