Hello everyone,
I have a Silver Bell plectrum that came to me with high action and distance between the neck and pot. Didn’t think too much of it and put a wood shim, and came back after a while to action being awful again and looks like the dowel and neck are separating. Is this an easy enough fix to just remove the glue, and reglue the dowel in with some titebond?
Unlucky but lucky. These banjos with a multi-piece neck cannot have the dowel steamed out, since the steam will also cause the center seam to let go. Lucky that yours has come loose on its own. Just regluing is a poor strategy. The neck angle has to be correct and the dowel should be tight in the socket. There is also an opportunity to increase the neck angle so no shim is needed.
Depending on your skill level and patience you may be able to reset the dowel yourself. I typically use brown kraft paper (kraft paper is made of wood) to shim the neck tightly before regluing. By placing tapered triangle shaped pieces of brown kraft paper on the bottom side of the dowel one can both tighten up the dowel and increase the neck angle. Glue should be cleaned/soaked off the dowel and the dowel should be dry before beginning this iterative process. The dowel must be snug--no movement--before glue up. If the change in neck angle needed is more than a titch then the neck heel will need to be recut making this job more complicated.
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