Mike Casey says:
6/10/2014 7:00:21 PM

Medium crown height works very well for my Blackjack setup. I use a standard over the counter Weatherking medium crown head. I tighten it to an even (or as even as I can get it) 92 on the DrumDial I still have some stretcher band showing above the tone ring. With the high crown I sometimes wind up with more stretcher band sticking up than I want. I use a Scropion 5/8 maple ebony bridge that weighs in at 2 g. I have used a Scorpion 1.8 g. and I like the sound that weight provides very much. I can go either 1.8 g or 2 g and get the sound I like. Some folks like a heavier weight, 2.2 g 2.4. g etc. Like everything else banjo you have to find the sound you are looking for. The tailpiece is the stock Presto and it rides at about the place where the ebony meets the maple. It puts enough downward pressure on the strings to give it a little zip. The strings are 10, 11, 12, 20JD and 10. I have used a 13 instead of the 12 with pretty good results too. The action is set at 7/64 at the 12th fret. The coordinator rods are set to finger tight with a tweak of a wrench. I don't want to stress the rim by adding any "egging" forces. This banjo has always been a great sounding banjo with a very nice old patina to the tone. The neck is very playable with almost no truss rod adjustment added. It sounds good in a band setting and has a very rich voice for backup. It is a very mature sounding banjo to me. The only not stock feature I've added are a set of Ron Barnes Big Butterscotch tuning buttons which give it one heck of a vintage look. These buttons are larger than most and give me a great positive feel and the necessary leverage to get the tuning just right. He fit them to the shafts and there is absolutely no play so all your tuning effort is directed at tuning and not correcting for button sloppiness. They look good and they perform great.