What Is This Banjo Rim?

[Mark Lurvey]

A friend of mine whats me to make a neck for this banjo rim.
He bought it a while ago at an antique shop but knows nothing about it.
It is 10 inches across, metal with a ring of what looks like mahogany on the inside.
Does anyone know anything about it?
Here are a few photos.
It had a dowel-stick neck and I will be making a fret less neck for it.
Thanks
Mark ô¿ô

[Michael Lewis]

Mark, from your pics it looks to be from any of several makers from around the turn of the last century, with metal spun over a thin wood rim. Check for flatness of the rim by placing it on a flat surface like a window or flat table. They often distort sort of like a potato chip from leverage and string tension. Good if it is flat. Many or most of these banjos had gut strings instead of steel, thus less string tension and less need for a thicker rim to deter deformation.

[Jon Whitney]

This seems like a better-than-average quality rim because it has L-shoes instead of the typical hex shoes. The large footprint of the L-shoes resists distortion from the head tension better.

A good sturdy dowel stick will also help resist the string tension distortion that Michael mentions.

Did you friend mention if he or she wants steel or nylon/nylgut/gut strings?

[Mark Lurvey]

Thanks for the input.

Michael, it does have a bit of a rock when put on a flat surface, but not too bad.
Jon, my friend is still deciding which way he wants to go. It will be a 5 string and fret-less. As to type of strings and scale length we're still deciding.

What do you all think?
Nylon, nylgut, or steel?
What scale length/neck length with a 10 inch pot?

ô¿ô

[Jim McConkey]

Sorry to be late to the party. I just noticed Mark's pot looks an awful lot like the pot on my turn-of-the-century Supertone (Sears) banjo. The brackets are a little different, but the pot looks nearly identical. Mine came with steel strings, and that is what I restrung it with. The scale length is 26 1/4 inches or 665 mm. There is a discussion in the library on my restoration of the banjo.

[Jon Whitney]

Thanks for the input.

Michael, it does have a bit of a rock when put on a flat surface, but not too bad.
Jon, my friend is still deciding which way he wants to go. It will be a 5 string and fret-less. As to type of strings and scale length we're still deciding.

What do you all think?
Nylon, nylgut, or steel?
What scale length/neck length with a 10 inch pot?

ô¿ô

My preference for fretless is nylon or Nylgut. I tried steel on my first fretless and the sound balance between open and stopped strings was very poor. I like the sound of Nylgut better when I've used them.

For a small pot like that I think a 24 1/2" scale length might be better but I'm kind of biased towards shorter scale lengths these days anyway.

[Michael Lewis]

My experience is with steel strings mostly, and those thin pots always seem to warp from the tension, so I agree with Jon regarding the lower tension strings.

[Bill Rickard]

The rim is possibly an old SS Stewart but it's difficult to be 100% certain. These rims were called spunover rims but in reality they were not spunover at all. They use to lay out a 2.75" to 3" wide strip of brass or German silver and bead in a rod along each edge, and the rolled the rim into the diameter that was needed. The joint was silver soldered under the neck area and polished out befor nickel plating the complete shell. The wood insert got installed after the plating process and was glued into the metal portion. I originally built my rms in this fashion but have since switched over to fully spinning each rim. By going this method the new fully spun rim is considerably more stable, does't warp, plus can handle medium guage steel strings.
In the photo b elow the first 3 rims are fully spunover, and the one rim to the right is a silver plated brass that hade the edges beaded over and then rolled and silver soldered.