Goodtime Maintenance Manual

It isn't difficult to maintain your banjo, if you understand what needs to be done. This maintenance manual will provide a thorough outline of what you can do to keep your banjo as nice as the day you bought it.

If you notice grooves wearing into your fingerboard, one possible cause is playing with long fingernails. Keep the fingernails on your fretting hand clipped short.

If you notice grooves in your frets, this is normal wear and tear, however if it happens within a year you may be pressing harder than necessary when you fret the neck and may be creating more fret wear than normal. Try using a lighter touch.

1. Remove the strings, tailpiece, and bridge. Take notice of how the tailpiece was adjusted, so you can replace it where it was.
2. You will need to loosen/completely remove the neck on your Goodtime banjo to change the head. Begin this process by removing the two ½” nuts at the tailpiece side of the pot assembly; one will be on the interior of the pot/rim and the other will be on the outside of the rim. You may have already removed the outer nut when you removed your tailpiece.
3. Now go to the side of the pot assembly/rim where the neck is attached. Remove the small nut around the upper hanger bolt. You will see a small portion of that screw sticking out of the pot, above your coordinator rod.
4. Your next step is to loosen the coordinator rod itself. You will simply need to turn it like you would when removing a nut. This will expose the other hanger bolt holding the neck in place.
5. You should now be able to back the neck out enough to remove the tension hoop and banjo head once you have removed the j-bolts.
6. Loosen all the bracket nuts with a bracket wrench, and then unhook the j- bolts from the tension hoop, leaving the j-bolts attached to the rim.
7. Remove the tension hoop and head. Be sure to note how the tension hoop was lined up so you can replace it correctly. Goodtime tension hoops have a seam that goes under the tailpiece.
8. Clean all the parts.
9. Put on the new head.
10. Put the tension hoop on over the head, making sure it fits evenly around the rim; no one side should be higher than the other.
11. Hook the j-bolts back over the tension hoop, first anchoring 4 bolts evenly spaced around the rim, and then filling in the rest of the j-bolts, just finger-tightening them. You will tighten them to tension in a later step.
12. Tighten the pot screws with a screwdriver before tightening the head. Keep the shoes straight.
13. Now reattach the neck to the rim. You want the fingerboard of the banjo neck to have the frets in parallel to the pot. Be sure the neck does not sit at an angle to the head/rim. Begin by attaching the small nut to the top hanger bolt.
14. Now attach the coordinator rod to the lower hanger bolt and reattach the inner ½” nut to the coordinator rod. Be sure to replace the washer on the wall end of the rim.
15. Put the tailpiece over the outside end of the coordinator rod and reattach the outer ½”nut.
16. To tighten the head, start on one side of the neck, and tighten each bracket nut with the bracket wrench only 1/8 turn, going around the rim several times until the head becomes tight. (See section Tightening the Head for how tight.)
17. Tighten down the tailpiece with the ½” nut on the exterior of the pot/rim.  
18. String the instrument up.

Good quality strings are essential to good tone.

Don't sacrifice your banjo's tone by trying to save a few pennies on strings.

Eventually you will learn to recognize when your strings have lost their responsiveness. You can also see if you need new strings by running your finger along the under-side of the string, checking for pits or grooves worn into the strings by the frets.

Strings should be changed a minimum of every couple of months if the banjo is played in moderation, and once every couple of days if it is played a lot. Old, worn, or corroded strings are a major cause of poor banjo sound.

The string is wound around the post in a direction away from the center of the peghead. Pass the free end under the attached string so the first wind is around the post above the string end.

The free end is then bent up and the string continues to be wound around the tuner post in the same direction so the next wind goes under the string. This way the string is clamped between two winds and will not slip. A string should pass around the shaft at least two full winds to clamp it.

If you don't like getting pricked by short string ends, then before you clip the string off take the end and pass it back through the tuner hole looping it back on itself, pull it tight and clip the string next to the tuner post. The string end will slip back inside the tuner post and will not have any stray end sticking out.

Your banjo was set up at the factory to take a 5/8" bridge and the neck alignment is based on this bridge height. Do not try to adjust the action by lowering the height of the bridge.

The size and design of the bridge will affect the sound of your banjo. Lowering the bridge creates less pressure on the head and a sound loss results, the banjo becomes less responsive and even muddy sounding.

Thinning the bridges reduces the weight and mass of the bridge to create a thinner, crisper or less bass sound. Thinning the bridge too much can weaken the bridge.

When curing buzzes in an old bridge or putting on a new bridge, take a V-file and V-groove the bridge slots with an angle downward toward the tailpiece so that the string makes contact right at the face of the bridge.

You can slide the tailpiece up or down by loosening the nut on the rod where its attached.

1. First check the strings to see if you need to replace them. If you aren't sure, put on a new set.
2. Check the action, using the Action Test (in the Coordinator Rod Section). If the clearance is less than 1/8", it is too low. (See Coordinator Rod Adjustments Section to raise the strings.)
3. Hold the string down at the first fret. (Fret the neck at the first fret.) If it still buzzes, check the bridge. A bridge buzz sounds like an annoying twang. (See The Bridge Section for handling.)
4. If the neck buzzes with string played open but doesn't buzz when fretted on the first fret, the problem is the nut.

   Deering nut slots are cut with special tools and procedures at the factory.

   You only run into nut problems if someone has tinkered with your banjo.

   • Is the nut slot too wide? If so, loosen the string and lay a piece of paper across the string slot.

     Put the string back over the slot and tighten it so that it pulls the paper down into the slot.

     Tear all excess paper off, leaving only the paper in the slot to fill the excess space temporarily , until you get a new nut.

   • There must be a highest point in the string groove which breaks the string vibrations at the edge of the nut by the fingerboard, or the string will buzz in the nut slot. If this is the problem, seek professional help.

   • The bottom of the string should be 1/16" above the fingerboard at the nut.

     If it is lower than this, the nut slot is cut too deep. Give it to a repairman to fix.

5. If you have gone through all of the above steps and still have buzzes, then the problem is with the frets.

   Expansion and contraction of neck wood due to changes in humidity can cause the frets to loosen and raise up, and the strings to buzz on high frets.

   Also, frets will wear down with use, and buzzing can occur when pressing the string on a worn fret if the next fret down the fingerboard toward the head is not also worn.

   To check the frets, lay a six inch ruler or straight edge on top of them and see if it rocks. If it doesn't lay flat on three or more frets, seek professional help.

1. Check the bottom of the heel. If it is pulled away from the rim, see the section "The Loose Neck". If the neck won't pull tight to the rim, the hanger-bolts are stripped. Hanger-bolts can strip out if the coordinator rod has been cranked too tight. Seek professional help.
2. Adjust the coordinator rod to lower the action. (See the Coordinator Rod Adjustment Section.)
3. If you have adjusted the coordinator rod within its limit and the action is still too high, a factory authorized repairman will have to reset the neck. This should be necessary only if your banjo has been tampered with.

1. Tighten the head, if it is loose. A loose head will sag and create even lower action. (See Tightening the Head Section.)
2. Adjust the coordinator rods. (See the Coordinator Rod Adjustment Section.)
3. If this doesn't do it, seek professional help.