Tenor Banjo bridge placement

[ImNotIrish]

@Thomaston

If you’re moving the bridge back and forth while keeping it completely perpendicular to the strings, you may not find that sweet spot. On mine, I have to use a slight angle to get everything in tune. I think it must be because of the string thickness needed. Try angling the part of the bridge where the G string goes closer to the tailpiece than the part with the E string.

I do the same thing on my B&D Silver Bell. I’m also using very heavy strings (G=.042).
Arbo

[fearfaoin]

@Paul Groff

Great news that the banjo is working right. Interesting that your luthier actually shaved the end of the fretboard. Was this necessary because of the replacement nut he used, or was the fretboard length there defective as originally built?

Well, it turns out the neck was not
perpendicular to the head’s tangent. I
don’t know if that was original or came
about later. So, the nut was already
angled incorrectly. The shortening of
the fretboard was to change the nut
angle.

He could have fixed the neck angle,
but at that point it would have been
cheaper to buy a new banjo.

@Paul Groff

2. When that open string was in tune, the fretted notes were sharp, especially the second fret.
   …
   Since it sounds as though you were using lighter than normal strings for the pitches you want, the nut slot may not have been the problem, but the sharpening at low frets due to excessive nut height might be worse if the strings are at low tension.

I think you’re right on, here. The low gauge
and low tension made it really too easy to
over-press, and therefore over-sharpen, esp.
on the lower frets (as the distance between
frets is larger at the nut end).