Article: Repairing 5th peg hole
The tapered 5th string peg separated the fingerboard
of this fancy old banjo.
This is a fine old banjo made by Lyon and Healy. In using the tapered 5th string peg over the years, the wedging action has separated the fingerboard. The goal is to fix it and prevent recurrence of the problem.
Here's a side view of the fingerboard:
The separation is just below the light veneer layer. The first step was to work hide glue in there and clamp the crack shut. To prevent this from opening up again, I decided to make a bushing for the peg using hollow rod. This is made from cloth in a phenolic matrix. It's very durable, and when it's done the peg will bear on the inner wall of the rod and exert no outward pressure on the seam.
Tapering the rod to match the taper of the peg.
Here's the old peg in its new phenolic bushing.
The neck clamped in the drill press to be drilled for the bushing. You can see the cork-lined cauls protecting the neck.
The bushing has been glued in. Now I'll level it to the neck and touch up the little collar that shows. I use alcohol-soluble pigments and brush shellac tinted with the pigments.
Here's the finished project. I wanted to let you see at least a little of the wonderful vine inlay on this neck!
A closer view. You can see the bushing, but you have to get your nose right down on it. The first thing I asked the customer was "Do you want to use a modern geared 5th string tuner?" He wrinkled his nose and said "No." I'm glad; this works fine and looks great.