Banjo Bridges by Bart - mounting a skin/hide banjo head 

A friend wanted to find out how a hide/skin head would sound on his banjo. I remembered I had a spare one so it was a good excuse to spend an evening with him. There are several ways to mount these heads so here's mine. Here's the secret weapon: the hose clamp I use, 3 small ones strapped together. Four or 5 is probably better. Not shown on the pics: first I put the hose clamp nice and loosely around the pot and just lay it on the table.  Oh, the slits in the hose clamp see to it that the crown can dry easily First I cover the top of the pot with cling wrap (thin plastic film) to make sure the wet head's water don't damage the rim (sorry, forgot to take that picture). The head now soaked and shown draped over the pot with the flesh hoop in place. This flesh hoop came out of an old 5 Star (Ludwig) head - wonderful 1/8" square stock. This one was brass, the newer ones are stainless steel While the hose clamp still lies on the table, snug it up so it's just a tad wider than the flesh hoop. Pick it up, move it upwards so it'll fold the head upwards along the way. I use a screw driver to hold the flesh hoop in place at approx the correct height. Not shown on the picture but I used a small wooden plank on top to keep the head from escaping and to make sure the clamp would be nice and even in height all the way around the rim  Now it's a bit of tugging while watching the vocabulary while muttering, tugging, poking and wiggling the upfolded skin to get it nice and even. Notice how nice and easy it is to grab a hold of the skin with just your fingers and thumbs instead of pliers that usually are out of reach... Some more wiggling to keep the durn thing from escaping. The point of course, to get the hose clamp nice and neat right above the fold that's holding the flesh hoop Everything's all in place now and the hose clamp is nice and tight. Kinda looks like a pot pie, don't it... A bit of a top view, the head is still wet. Notice the see-thru areas on this particular head, they're not white With the hose clamp nice and tight I fold the head downward while it's still wet. I leave the whole thing for 24 hours until it's nice and dry. The head "overhang" being nice and away from the tone ring makes trimming nice a safe with very little chance of the knife making unplanned excursions into the wrong places After trimming off the overhanging hide I removed the clamp and took off the head so I could remove the cling wrap. At this point what you have in your hand is a pre-mounted hide head. Here's the new head installed on an Ode, model D ready to rock and the new sound/tone is simply amazing. Notice the head is all nice and white now thanks to my friend's secret whiting recipe   Oh, his secret recipe is just that, a secret.   Why a hose clamp? No needle nose point pliers needed, no pliers period. Plenty of head to hold with just your thumb and fingers The clamp squishes the wet head real good so when it's dry the crown is as thin as it can be, thin enough for the tightest tension hoops. If you've ever tackled an S.S. Stewart you know all too well what I'm talking about and you're probably grinning by now No needle and thread like I saw pictures of somewhere a long time ago The head being just any ol' pre-mounted head now you get to spin it around on the top of the rim to whichever way it looks the nicest before you tension it I hadn't done one for a while so I took my sweet time to do it, a little over one hour. One thing I had forgotten: the hose clamp being a half inch wide makes exactly for a high crown head. Somewhere along the way while tugging the head I put a plank on top the pot to keep the hose clamp nice and even. I shoulda pushed less hard as this pot was more suitable for a medium crown, but what the hay, it fit no prob. Oh yes, it's nice to have someone helping to hold down stuff while you're doing it but it's doable as a solo job. Oh, the head being all nice and white instead of having the yellowish see-thru areas - maybe another day. Oops, forgot to mention: watch out when tightening the hose clamp - if you over-tighten it as you could easily crush the rim on no-tone ring openbacks. Keep in mind: new banjo heads need re-tensioning several before the banjo head, whether skin/hide or mylar, is done stretching, usually at least five to six times. To tension heads I use a Drum Dial to make life easy. Unlike mylar heads, the skin ones often are a bit thicker & thinner at various areas on the head. You usually can get them to even tension all around, maybe not the first time but the second or third time it'll be fairly even. If you cannot get it totally even then don't worry, it's the nature of these heads. When I tighten the head the first time, it's totally dry already at this point of course. I'll play a few tunes and then moisten the head again. The head is quite flabby now and I tighten all nuts a bit. Now I'll put the banjo away to dry for another 24 hours. Keep checking that when the head is dry that the head tension does not go higher than 88~90. How much is a bit? Not more than 1/4 turn on all nuts for the first round of tensioning. Subsequent tension may not need tightening at all! I keep repeating this moisten & dry routine for about a week to ten days. By then the head is pretty much done stretching and a lot less susceptible to humidity changes to boot. Maybe not the best way, but it's one way, YMMV