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 Post subject: Rescue Banjo
PostPosted: Fri May 22, 2015 10:36 pm 
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Just picked up a rogue travel/starter banjo at a pawn shop. With gig bag, no tools, dvd or booklet for $125. Not remotely set up. Head loose, neck bowed, bridge misplaced, crap action. Almost exactly as it had come from the factory (except that the bridge WAS on banjo instead of in the little baggie). I figured it had never been played - if anyone had tried to play it, they would have been cruelly disappointed.

Then when I took the strings off to clean it up, I realized that it HAD been played - there was fret wear. So some poor soul had been trying to learn the banjo on the thing. That's really too bad.

Buying a mail-order Chinese banjo is a lot like buying a bookshelf from IKEA. If nothing else, you'd better be pretty good with an Allen wrench. Or I think of the old toy ads: "Your parents have to put it together."

We think that labor in China is cheap, but in fact, the cost is rising to the point where these entry level banjos are only assembled enough to come out of the box in one piece. If you think you're going to order a $125-500 banjo and it's going to arrive in playable condition, you're likely to be disappointed.

On the other hand, if you spent half your spare time in college fixing broken stringed instruments for your friends, and you need a "beach banjo," because the last "beach banjo" you bought (my Samick) turned out to be a "keeper," you might just buy one to see if you can turn it into a musical instrument. Or you might just loan it to a friend who keeps saying he wants to learn banjo, just to see if he'll actually try.

Once I snugged up the head and adjusted the neck and reset the bridge, it started to look and sound like a musical instruments of sorts. The action still sucks, though. I can play it, but I can just about fret a cheese slicer. There's no comparison to my other banjos. Then I cleaned it up. Next I will replace the strings with Martin Bluegrass light, and see if that helps the action any.

Oh, the strings are closer together at the nut than they need to be, almost an eighth of an inch narrower between the 1st and 4th strings than my other banjos, even though the nut width is the same. The tuners are cheezy, too. So if I were to keep it, upgrading the nut and the tuners would be a consideration.

So the jury's still out. If you think I'm being harsh on this poor thing, you need to know that there are about eleven other brands, I wouldn't have taken out of the store for free on a bet. But the second Rogue mandolin I got (after sending the first one back to MF with inexcusable factory defects) turned out to be a surprisingly good instrument. So poor quality control works both ways. This one didn't have any obvious defects, so I thought I'd take it at face value and see what I could do with it.

Stay tuned . . . .:-)


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 Post subject: Re: Rescue Banjo
PostPosted: Sat May 23, 2015 11:19 am 
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So, I cranked the neck back using the tension adjustment rod, enough to introduce a slight bow "backwards," (the only kind acceptible on a banjo). And the action still wasn't where I liked it. I took the old strings off, wiped down the fretboard with a high-grade furniture polish, gave it time to soak in as much as it wanted, then wiped it off. Just because the mahogany or ebony or rosewood they use on fingerboards is moisture resistant doesn't mean that the natural oils don't dry out over time.

I put the new strings on - a set of "Martin Bluegrass Banjo Strings" that were packaged in "corrosion inhibiting envelopes." The .011 B string was rusty coming out of the package. Whatever.

Action still wasn't where I wanted it. I did something I seldom do and adjusted the "coordinator" rod to pull the whole neck back. Now the action is better, though there is a tiny bit of fret buzz where there wasn't before. I'll give the "new" strings a day or three to settle in, then release the pressure on the tension adjustment rod. Nut still needs replaced, so that's when I'll try tweaking the depth of the slots on the neck, which I think are .001 or so high.

That said, at the moment, it's FAR better set up than the average starter banjo, even one that's theoretically been set up by the store guy. It is very playable. I just know it could be better.

Also it doesn't have the tinny volume of the pop top banjos I've tested, but it does have a nice tone that is a lot brighter since I tightened the head.

So, the short answer is, yes, a Rogue starter banjo CAN be set up for a beginner to play, and make an okay beach banjo for folks who upgrade to a better banjo later. Now the test is can it be set up enough to make it a good alternate banjo to a fellow who already has banjos that require almost no left-hand pressure to play well.

More to come. :-)


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 Post subject: Re: Rescue Banjo
PostPosted: Sat May 23, 2015 11:25 am 
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By the way, this banjo fits very nicely into my Superior backless banjo bag, which I originally bought for my GoodTime banjo and now use for my upgraded Samick that I keep backless. The Superior bag is more substantial, but even more important, if fits WAY better than the bag that came with the Rogue. Yes, the bag that MF bundles with the Rogue starter/travel banjo in their starter kits IS substantially better than the bags that usually go in starter kits. But unless you feel like you need the DVD or whatever, if you're going to buy a Rogue Starter/Travel backless banjo, don't bother buying the bundled version - buy the banjo separately and order the Superior bag for it. And a strap, which MF leaves out of the bundle anyway. Get the strap with the little shoestrings on each end - the banjo has little triangular "D-rings" for the strap.


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 Post subject: Re: Rescue Banjo
PostPosted: Sun May 24, 2015 3:57 pm 
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When I say elsewhere that the banjo is all about the neck, what I mean is that if the neck ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. After giving the thing a day to settle in with the the new strings, the action was still bad, and the strings were still getting farther from the neck as they approached the drum head.

More about the coordinator rod. On this banjo, adjusting it i a piece of cake since there's a sort of turnbuckle thing on it. If you look at the threads closely, you'll notice that the threads on the fatter bolt that goes into the neck are in the opposite direction to the threads on the coordinator rod. So turning the turnbuckle one way tightens everything up and turning it the other way loosens everything up. I loosened the strings temporarily and tightened the turnbuckle about a quarter of a turn. This is a dangerous setup, by the way - convenient for me, but likely to encourage newbies to over-tighten the coordinator rods to the point where the pot would distort, or - worse yet - explode in splinters.

After retuning the thing for about the fifteenth time (see why I recommend having new strings on hand when you set up a banjo?), the action was better overall, but now the slight bow I introduced when I tightened the adjustment rod in the neck is too much and there's a little fret buzz. So I'll have to relieve the pressure on the tension rod.. Still it is now quite playable and would keep a newbie from chucking the thing in the lake. In a day or so, after the thing has settled in with this adjustment, I'll re-tweak the neck.

After that, I'll let it settle in some more and see if I think it's worth replacing the nut.


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Paul Race playing a banjo. Click to go to Paul's music home page.Whatever else you get out of our pages, I hope you enjoy your music and figure out how to make enjoyable music for those around you as well.

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