I would tighten the head and keep an eye on the humidity. Periodic adjustments of hide heads are part of the ride.

Thank you! Will give it a go. Do you find you occasionally have to loosen the head as drier months approach? How does one monitor this. Or am I over thinking it.

Don’t over think it.

I have used hide heads for decades. Live in PEnnsylvania and it gets pretty humid in the summer, so I understand what you are going through.

Always seems like my banjos sound best in February when the relative humidity is bone dry at 12-30%. Skin heads are nice and tight. Then comes summer and everything slacks down with the humidity. You basically just have to keep after the heads and tighten and loosen with the weather. Do it enough, and it gets to be second nature and you learn to tighten the head to the best sound by feel and tapping pretty quickly.

Isaac above summed it up pretty succinctly, but that being said, nothing beats the sound of a natural skin head.

Does water resistant spray coatings, silicone etc. negatively affect the sound or help resist humidity? banjered

You might consider using the wine cork device. You move it from near the neck in dry conditions and towards the bridge in more humid conditions. As an aside, I did an experiment by putting saw dust on the skin head and then subjecting it to various frequencies using an old Korg tuner and an amp (on it's back). I then placed the banjo over the speaker and noted the dancing saw dust. Without the cork, the saw dust only danced around the bridge, but with the cork it danced around both the bridge and the cork. I think the cork adds to the sound quality of my banjo.

Pretty much since the beginning of banjos as we know them, heads were made from the skins of baby cows. I don't know why goat became a thing, but it seems that they tend to be more elastic than calf.

Tap tones, drum dials, or magic colloidal silver won't matter with hide (though initial soaking in stump water during a full moon won't hurt). Atmospheric conditions change by the hour, and so will your banjo head.

An early solution was electric incandescent light bulbs. Alfred Farland made heads out of annealed steel. Then polyester film came out.

Natural skin heads are fun but if you want to keep them board tight (where they sound the best) expect a POP at some point. The other option is to tighten and loosen as needed.

On damp days, tighten before playing then loosen it to where it was before putting it away.

Thanks for the great advice everybody! I’ll keep fiddling with it. I appreciate the advice to loosen the head after playing if I tighten it on a rainy day - makes sense. What I’m not hearing is to mess around w bridge height so I’m going to leave that alone.

quote:

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Originally posted by banjered

Does water resistant spray coatings, silicone etc. negatively affect the sound or help resist humidity? banjered

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Tom: 

Those leather water-proofing products products  might be great for adding surface water resistance to shoes ... but they have little effect on banjo heads.  In my experience, they do very little prevent the hide from absorbing atmospheric humidity. I don't use or recommend them. 

I think the advice posted here is spot-on.  Some variation is par for the course - especially when a hide is new.   Personally, I might tweak the tension of my heads seasonally as-needed.  I do it by feel.  On an open-back banjo, it takes a few seconds - no more trouble than tuning the strings.  if I tighten much in the very humid Tennessee summer, I will definitely monitor the tension and loosen a bit when the weather cools, the heat kicks on, and humidity inside falls very low. 

A tension device like the drumdial can be useful to monitor the tightness and help prevent over-tightening and premature failure.  However, I don't recommend using a drumdial to try and set a perfectly even tension around the hide (as you would with plastic).  Hides just don't work that way - some unevenness around the surface is normal.  I use a drumdial just to check the general level.  I set mine around 90 +/-. Some of the salt-processed goat hides I've been using the past couple of years are very sturdy and perform best high tension (a little above 90)  

quote:Originally posted by petemattingly

So my question for you: do I tighten the head back to G#? Or do I try a taller bridge; and if so, how tall?

petemattingly

I've used a handheld, portable (hair) blow-dryer to blow hot air on the head to tighten it.

I've never tuned my hide heads. I stretch a thread across the head to see how much the bridge is pressing into it and adjust from there.

I've used a 3/4" bridge for so long that I can't remember when I didn't.