If you're mostly worried about the setup I would tighten the neck to the pot before tensioning the head all the way. This way the heel-to-ring-to-rim connection is solid before the ring is fixed in place.

As far as making it fit tighter I don't know a good way besides having a new rim fit. Someone else might have a good strategy, however.

I will say I've tried using masking tape to alter the ring fit in various ways and I felt like it killed the tone. That might not be everyone's experience though.

I have one banjo where the tone ring is too loose.

For a proper fix, I should turn the skirt area to a smaller diameter and then glue in a strip of maple veneer and then turn it on the lathe so that the tone ring fits properly.

Alas, I just put a brass shim into that area so that the skirt was lined up flush with the wood on the neck side. The tone turned out to be excellent, so I've been procrastinating on doing the proper fix. It's been that way about 8 years now.

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Originally posted by mynameisjeramy

I'm curious to know about both DIY methods and what a professional alteration might look like.

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I use small strips of wood veneer, one on either side of the lag bolt hole. Shimming a loose rim at that location (behind the part of the ring that the neck bears against)  keeps the neck from pushing the ring back, which raises the neck angle.

I have various thickness shim material: maple veneer cards a little ove .02 thick I bought on Etsy for a few dollars for 10 and wood fiber veneer shets in .01 and .02 thickness I bought from LMII, which no longer exists.

I lightly stick the veneer in place with the smallest bit of glue stick.

That's my DIY method.

A popular DIY approach is to use masking tape.  I don't do that.

I think the professional luthier alteration would be to glue a band of maple all around the ring skirt part of the rim then turn it on a lathe to get back to the desired o.d.

If it is not much too loose, one or two layers of paper tape work fine.

Sandpaper glue rough side out

I would try some metallic duct tape….not the fabric type.

For what it’s worth I’ve recently used thin hardwood bridge shims from stewmac as an easy fix to raise the bridge height on an upright bass — about five layers of them stacked/glued/clamped to the bottom of the feet. They can be cut down as needed from roughly 4”x6” sheets and bend nicely once the moisture from the glue hits them. They maintained the curved/concave profile of the original foot surface perfectly.

In your case it would be essentially what Old Hickory showed above.  I’m sure you could get similar shims for cheaper, but I did like the thinness of these — really lets you dial in the tolerances by stacking as needed.

When circular external and internal parts are fit together, there are three ways to do it. You can have clearance between the parts, you can have no clearance between the parts, or you can have interference between the parts.

Gibson manufactured the Mastertone banjo so there was clearance between the inside radiused surface of the tone ring skirt and the radiused, outside, mating surface of the rim. I suspect that they designed it that way to minimize cost by making assembly as simple and as fast as possible.

Assuming that you still want to have that clearance, why would it be better to have less clearance than the clearance that’s already there. Clearance is clearance.

If I were you, I would leave the rim as it is and follow the advice provided in LouieChee’s reply.

Since the tone ring is metal, I'd say metal is another appropriate shimming material. Options include brass shim stock sold at hobby shops in various thicknesses, flashing, or cut up drink can. You could possibly even fold over strips of aluminum foli to reach the desired thickness.

There's also cut up plastic credit card.

Maybe even wood edge banding.

I think all of these would be neutral in terms of the banjo's sound.

There's not the same type of selection of veneer cards on Etsy or eBay as there was years ago when I bought my 10-pack for just a few dollars plus postage. Craft stores sell maple veneer for Cricut machines. It's .02- to .03-inch thick. You might pay around $10 for just a small amount, but it will be way more than you need for one tone ring. You'll enough to shim a neck, too!

I bought a used Ibanez B200 a few years ago. It was missing a reso but I had one for it. I stripped it down to clean it only to find the tone ring was steel and it has 3-4 mm slop fit on the rim. I glued a couple of strips of thin wood veneer to the rim the took it to a wood turner who turned it down. It fitted nicely. I am not sure it made any improvement to the sound (you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear!). I ended up selling it (as was the intention) highlighting the fact that banjos should have a slip fit tone ring.