MB250 Rebuild

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Epiphone Banjo Pickers

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Where Epiphone players can come and talk about strings, setup and other tweaks to get the best tone/sound from their banjo

72 Members, Created 11/26/2011 -

Administrators: MightyMOBanjo (owner)

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From MightyMOBanjo on 7/8/2014 7:02:07 PM

Well I finally did a complete rebuild on my MB250. Took the tone ring off and sanded the rim a little put it back together and started playing it. I then thought,"wow this thing sounds a lot better." So, being the banjo player that I am I thought that I could get it to sound even better.

I had a no name 48 oz 20 whole tone ring, which by chance is the same weight and stuff as a Tennessee 20. So I thought "what the hell, lets put that in there."

I am here to tell you that, that Epi which people dismiss so much and call junk really rocks. The tone is great up and down the neck, which before it wasn't, it just sounds really really good now. Close to, but not quite to my TB 2 '27 conversion (which is an AT and a awesome sounding banjo), and is just as good or better than any RK banjo that I have heard.

I took it to a jam the other day and people were commenting on how good that banjo sounds.

I always thought that they were good well built banjos. Which never deserved the reputation that they had.

So if you are thinking about "upgrading" to an RK or something like it I would recommend to just put a new tone ring in the one you have.

4 Comments
	Vapor says: 7/8/2014 10:49:12 PM I did a total disassemble, fit the tone ring, replaced the TP with a Kerschner, and a USA remo top frosted, replaced the bridge, and it is absolutely amazing. I was going to replace the nut with bone, and it came with a bone nut and pip. I agree, in my experience they really are a much better banjo than they get credit for.
	LGriff6250 says: 7/9/2014 4:37:45 PM Wow, Mighty and Vapor, I just may have to try a new tone ring on my Epi. I never felt my 40 year old Epi was junk, but it improved GREATLY when Dennis Sullivan set it up for me. It made a world of difference, and I hope a new tone ring will too. I don't have any gigs for a few weeks, so now is the time.
	Vapor says: 7/10/2014 8:16:34 AM I kept the original parts on my banjo with the exception of the tailpiece, bridge and strings, and am very happy. I would love to hear if anyone else changed the Tone ring and how it sounded. But after doing my setup on mine, I was very happy with it.
	MightyMOBanjo says: 7/10/2014 9:01:37 AM I also should say that I replace the nut and pip with bone. Replaced the tail piece with a Fults. And replaced the bridge with a Purcell 1/2" bridge. Since I had such good results with the change of tone rings I have been thinking of changing to a name brand ring. Like a Kulesh Vintage 20 which is suppose to be in the Earl signature banjos. But, since does sound so good I don't know if I want to send the money to do that. Don't know how much gain that I will get.
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