First time installing a hide head

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Hide Heads

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For all things related to the use of SKIN BANJO HEADS. Calf, goat, possum, hairy, shaved, stained, pre-mounted. You name it.

380 Members, Created 3/28/2011 -

Administrators: jbalch (owner)

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From Rsquare on 6/16/2022 9:26:05 AM

Hello pickers! I'm a life long guitar picker and have very recently picked up a banjo for the first time. I have fallen in love with claw hammer style and have about a half dozen songs down. Can't quit now so I bought a better banjo. Washburn B102. The first thing I did was order a calf skin medium thick hide. Installation went very well. 3 days later it's all reassembled , but the head sags at the bridge too much. I'm worried about over tightening this thing. 1) should I let it settle for a while? 2) grit my teeth and wrench it on down?

I've read a lot of posts here and I'm looking for encouragement :)

5 Comments
	existential_banjo says: 6/16/2022 9:41:55 AM Tighten up the hide. It'll take it.
	gsmyth says: 6/16/2022 10:00:29 AM Hello Rsquare.. I share your sqeamishness about head tightening! But so far I've not broken any calf skin heads and want to let you know what I'm doing. I have three tenor banjos (excessive yes I know) and installed calf skin heads on each about a year ago. These are premounted heads that I got from JD Balch. The skins were from Stern Tanning Co., and I am not sure if their thickness is medium like yours is. They may be thinner. Two banjos have 11" diameter rims, and one is 12". I took a cautious approach and tightened the heads gradually over the course of about a month. I use the "ruler and coin" approach to checking head tightness, which involves placing a straight edge across the head and then seeing if the deflection at the bridge is such that a quarter just slides between them, just touching both the head and ruler. (A US quarter is around .070") I have convinced myself that this amount of deflection is a good compromise between safety and tone. By that I mean that I like the tone of my banjos well enough at this head tightness, but I am not worried that the head is about to crack either from me over tightening slightly or from the head stretching later on just due to lower humidity. I do check the deflection fairly often and make tension adjustments if needed. Again, I took a gradual approach to tightening the skin head when first installed. No breakage yet, fingers crossed... regards ps: I got the idea for the ruler/coin approach on BHO.. If you search on Steve Davis I think you'll find more details on how to do this properly.
	Rsquare says: 6/16/2022 12:27:42 PM Thanks everyone, that’s the kind of answers I was hoping for. I have also seen the ruler and coin method. I believe I could put 2 quarters under the straight edge today. I think I’ll let it rest another day then crank it down. What could possibly go wrong? (My sons favorite saying)
	mrphysics55 says: 6/23/2022 10:24:26 AM : >D
	Uncle Freddy says: 6/23/2022 6:27:35 PM I think the main concern is to not tighten it up too much before it's completely dried. I usually give it 48 hours or so under dry conditions, just to be sure, before bringing it up to a tension that sounds good to me. Sounds like you're proceeding just right...give it a few days, take it up slowly to the tension you want. They don't usually split unless there's a flaw in the head, or rough spots on the rim. I've had a head split from leaving the instrument in the sun in a hot car, but never from tightening up a new head. You might find that it stretches a bit over time; the new ones will do that, and you might need to tighten it up again. I'm always amazed at how sturdy those skins are; I have one banjo that's over 100 years old with the original skin in great shape.
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