1924/1990s Vega/Homebrew 5-String Resonator Banjo

A customer sent this hodge-podge in for going-over. It has a 1924 Vega tenor banjo rim mated to a homemade maple neck. The neck itself needed a lot of tweaking to get it to perform correctly, but now that it does, I have to say that the instrument does sound nice. I'm not crazy for 5-string conversions and do them myself only when parts align in the right way, so I'm a bit biased against them coming from the angle that I actually like tenor banjos a lot and don't like to see their necks yanked to contribute to the ever-larger 5-string army.

So, anyhow, this one turned-out nice. The rim is simple and has no tonering, so the overall vibe is mellow and sweet with just enough pop to keep it from sounding too plain or plunky. It has a Gibson-ish scale length and so the handling is "average modern" on the left-hand, too.

Repairs included: a fret level/dress and fret seating job, cleaning, side dots install, new compensated 5/8" bridge, additional neck/rim joint reinforcement, new 5th-string "pip," railroad spike capos for frets 7, 9, and 10, and setup.

Setup notes: it plays perfectly with 1/16" action at the 12th fret, strung with 9s. The neck has a touch of backbow starting around fret 12 until the join with the rim. It doesn't really affect playability.

Scale length: 26 5/16"

Nut width: 1 3/16"

String spacing at nut: 15/16"

String spacing at bridge: 1 11/16"

Head diameter: 11"
Resonator diameter: 13"

Rim depth: 3"

Rim material: ply maple, no tonering, tortoise binding

Neck wood: maple with steel-bar reinforcement

Fretboard: ebony

Bridge: ebony/maple 5/8" compensated

Neck feel: medium C/D shape, flat board

Condition notes: rim has original hardware plus a later armrest. The neck appears to be from the '90s, maybe, per its hardware? The resonator is either original Vega or 1920s period-correct, but has modified "feet" on the inside of it. There's playwear throughout the instrument. The neck's frets were put in somewhat sloppy and there's wear and tear to the fretboard that was presumably done when it was made -- and never fixed. I had to seat a lot of the frets and wick glue into all the fret slots to make sure they were stable.

Decent-quality 4:1 geared pegs came with this machine.