Repair (rather than replace) 5th string peg?

[David Politzer]

An attempt to tighten a banjo 5th string, beyond where it had been before, produced a catastrophic failure of an old tuner. The square steel shaft simply came loose. With the end of the shaft no longer held in the plug base (? -- i.e., the brass thing glued inside the neck), tightening the screw on the knob produces no friction between the various parts. In fact, the knob and shaft assembly just slipped out.

The question is whether there is any way to make it work again, or is removal and installation of a new peg required?

I do not believe I lost any parts. The end of the square shaft has a tapered round part, with the taper angled to be held by something in the base plug -- now, presumably, worn and/or broken. That taper and the round little hole at the bottom of the base plug are visible in the photos.

If forced to remove it, I'm inclined to tap a thread into the brass plug, insert a machine screw until firm, and heat and wiggle. (There's a lot of visible glue; it's certainly not original equipment.)

(Please don't say I needed a geared peg anyway. It's a 19th Century instrument, and friction pegs do fine with light gauge nylgut strings.)

[David Collins]

I'm sure the existing peg can be repaired, but it would certainly be much easer to repair with the sleeve removed from the neck. It seems finding or making some sort of expansion plug to grip the inside diameter and use as a puller would be least invasive, but may take a good bit of time to create and still may not be enough to pull past all the glue it seems covered in. Tapping in to the large diameter and installing a bolt as a puller may work just fine as well, but if you were planning to repair this one it seems the small diameter hole in the bottom would be the more important one to preserve. 

I'm guessing that tapered diameter at the bottom of the post may have been straight when initially assembled, then peened to expand within the a tapered hole in the base? If you could remove that base, then the shaft could be chucked in a lathe (if you have one available) and a hole drilled at tapped in the end. Then a screw and washer could be installed to provide a new bearing surface on the inside end of the base. 

If the base sleeve could be easily removed (the "heat & wiggle" approach may hopefully loosen it more quickly than expected), then I think this hardware repair could be accomplished fairly quickly and easily. I don't have any ideas immediately coming to mind however for any easy fixes without removing the sleeve from the neck. 

[Mark Pollock]

Would this have originally have had a simple one-piece peg friction fit into a tapered hole?

[David Politzer]

It could have originally been an ivory friction peg, but I strongly suspect not.  The banjo is a circa 1896 Luscomb with a 13" solid aluminum pot and thin wood tone ring.  (The scale length is 19 3/4"; yes, it's a banjeaurine.)  Banjo Bill (http://www.billsbanjos.com) has photos of less expensive Luscombs with clad wood pots and ivory friction pegs.  But the all higher end models with the solid aluminum pots and some of the others have metal assembly friction pegs.  On my instrument, the tuners in the peg head are of the metal variety and, if not original, are very old.  Also, the guy I bought it from included an ancient, broken 5th string tuner knob that seems to have been passed along with the banjo and pre-dates the one that failed on me.

What's your thought? Go to a one-piece peg? (I have an Eric Prust minstrel-style banjo that's wonderful and have no trouble tuning with the ebony pegs.)

[Mark Pollock]

Well, this is not a good suggestion, but I'll chuck it out there anyways -

I recently helped a friend restore an old Washburn banjo that had all the original pegs, but the hole fore the 5th string peg was worn out and way too big for the peg. He got a rod of phenolic, and we drilled a pilot hole down the center. He then drilled out the hole for the 5th string peg and glued the rod into that. He was then able to ream out that rod and it now holds the tuner beautifully, and keeps the nylon strings in tune perfectly.

It probably won't help, but if the hole ends up being too big for whatever you end up doing, you have an option. Good luck.

[Matt Haugen]

I have no history with banjos, or this exact repair, but I like David's thought of using an expansion plug to grab the piece and pull it out of the neck. Perhaps shooting some steam in the sleeve (like a neck joint) would help loosen the glue holding the sleeve in place and ease the removal process.