1950's Kay K-52 Banjo

[JSett]

A colleague at worked just picked this up for me for £100. Came via a 90+ year old woman who said it was her late husbands he had since before they met. Early 50's apparently:







Need some work supposedly after being in storage. No big deal as I like a project.

I don't know how to play the banjo. Yet

[Telliot]

Awesome, congrats! I've wanted a banjo for as long as I can remember but never seem to get around buying one; ditto on a pedal steel guitar.

[JSett]

Awesome, congrats! I've wanted a banjo for as long as I can remember but never seem to get around buying one; ditto on a pedal steel guitar.

It's something I've always been interested in. There's not nearly as big a fanbase here in the UK as there is over the pond but it is used in a lot of traditional Irish/British folk music. I should get hold of in in person tomorrow so I can see what it needs. Hopefully a good clean, lube and new strings will be enough but I'm prepared to maybe have to buy a new head. None of these things are particularly expensive thankfully.

[JSett]

Got ahold of this today. It's actually not in too bad shape. everything works as it should and the head is still absolutely fine. I put on some new strings, oiled the fretboard etc

The neck, however, has quite the bow and no truss rod to adjust it. I've managed to shim and tweak it so it's relatively playable up to about the 9th fret...after that it starts to badly fret-out. I guess the only real fix is to have the neck straightened which is a bummer.