VIOLA!

The banjo mandolin is home after its repairs. And with a new velum head fitted and tightened, it looks stunning!
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Both of the original machine heads were unfortunately replaced. One tuning peg simply would not turn due to a problem in its internal mechanics. The music shop even used their time and petrol to show it to another person who tried taking it apart, riveting and welding the peg back together. But in the end it was a choice between originality and authenticity or having a playable banjo mandolin! Who knows, perhaps I will be able to find a replacement machine head in my travels over the internet? It would be nice, as the extra width of the new set make it that tiny bit harder to fit the instrument in its case (as well as being slightly less elegant!).

The instrument was strung with 'number 9' mandolin strings, which are apparently nice and soft. It was also fitted with a bridge which they warned raises the strings quite high. Lower down on the fretboard they run 5mm above the frets, which will make those higher notes a little harder to fret. This was the best they could do in the circumstances, but I will need to keep a look out for an even lower bridge if this is possible.

The final repair was to replace a missing inlay on the fretboard. Since they need to order these in, they advised to bring the instrument in next week for a couple of hours. They will file the hole down a tad and glue the inlay. They consider that I have already paid for this too.

All in all the repairs cost $160. That included a Maestro pitch pipe for mandolin/violin to help me tune this instrument which is really quite foreign to me in a lot of ways...