I'm still only a few years in, so grain of salt:

I've never had any trouble getting a skin head back on after removing it. Once dry they tend to hold on to the flesh ring pretty well.

Your head 'height' relative to the fretboard (ignoring adjustability in the neck/pot joint) is set by the tone ring. The head is pulled down firmly against it.

What you're seeing here is the tension hoop being low, rather than the head being high. There's no inherent downside to playability from the tension ring being low, so long as it doesn't interfere with the neck and can be properly tensioned.

I'll concur with everything Ian posted, and would direct your attention to his last sentence--

Make sure that the head is not bottomed out on the heel of the neck! If it is, any further attempt to tighten the head will bend the tension hoop, and possibly warp the rim as well.

Skin heads do stretch over time, and I don't know of any simple or reliable way to evenly remount them to adjust for that. If yours has bottomed out, the head should be replaced.

If there's still room to tighten the head, it's OK, and you should have no problem removing it and putting it back on.

There are lots of instructions out there on how to mount a skin head, and even if you're not planning on doing that soon, they can help you understand how your banjo is put together.

OK I see. Then it is the actual height of the skin head relative to that of the tension hoop that is creating the appearance of a high head. If I used a low or medium crown head then the top of the tension hoop would be up even with the head. I’ll definitely see how the Fiberskyn fits and sounds when I get it apart.

Ian and Dan—good call on the bottom of the head bottoming out on the neck cutout—it looks like that is the situation. I guess I will be replacing that head after all! Of course I could give a bunch of guys on here heart attacks by suggesting I might just get out a saw or rasp and hack the neck down to where the head will fit! Thanks

Dry Ridge, I know you were joking about "hacking" the neck heel down lower, but remember that heel cut out is RADIUSED, so at best you'd need to chisel, or more properly used a radiused hole drill/saw. Filing/rasping would just open a BIG can of worms.

Just make sure that for the “cleaning” you use some “non abrasive polish”. That way you can clean the plating off.

Regarding the head, the trimmed edge has been pulled down to where you can’t see it. Heads are replaceable, like strings. Replace the head.

But make the part fit the banjo, not the banjo fit the part.

I see that you're discussing fibreskyn instead, but I guess I'll mention my head mounting technique anyway, which lets me install without a visible trimmed edge.

Often you'll read instructions telling you to cut the head with a knife against the tension hoop right after mounting, while still wet. Some people can get a nice clean invisible edge that way, but I find it hard to achieve.

I prefer to instead leave it un-trimmed until dry, then I remove the head and trim it with small scissors. I find this lets me cut it much lower and provide a cleaner looking install

Another benefit of the latter technique is that you can test the head tension/crown height of the dried head before trimming. If necessary, remove, re-wet, re-mount.

I do exactly the same as Ian. IMHO, Fiberskyn heads sound terrible.

Well, I got it all apart and started cleaning, I think it hadn’t been done in my lifetime. The head was very tight but turned out it was pre-mounted so it came loose easily. Once past all the crud it was just like removing a Remo and can be remounted easily. Trouble is it measures out as a 1/2” high crown which is why it bottoms out on the heel cutout. It also is only 10 7/8” diameter so I can’t use my 11” low crown Fiberskyn head to test height. I suspect I'll be ordering a new head from Jonh Balch.

Anyway I used Cape Cod metal polishing cloths which have no abrasive and just take off the crud and tarnish. So far I have the tension ring and tone ring looking good. Next job will be to clean all the j-hooks, shoes, nuts, and other hardware. I also bought some leather friction washers from Richie Dotson to tighten up the tuners. The last owner installed a Hawktail tailpiece on it but I have the original Elite no-knot so may reinstall it as it fits better given the fact the head sits above the top of the tension hoop.

In the process of disassembling the neck/pot I also found out that the neck was actually still in it's original factory position at the heel but someone had put a screw into the end of the dowel to set the neck angle and that cracked the metal adjuster band around the bottom of the dowel. So I will need to silver solder it. But at least I will be able to reinstall the Little Giant adjuster.

My final chore will be to renew the French Polished finish on the front and back of the head. At some point in the past someone touched up some spots with little dabs of black paint which need to be polished down with 00000 synthetic steel wool and then touched up with shellac. I made up a fresh batch of shellac and have been practicing my French Polish finish technique. Yes, I will do some tests on a hidden place in the pot before proceeding to the head. This has turned out to be a bigger job than I had expected but in the end it will be nice to get it back in form. The good news is that the serial number on the pot and dowel both match, #3984 with a 5 stamped just above the 4. Anyone know why they did that and what build year that was?

quote:

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Originally posted by John Yerxa

IMHO, Fiberskyn heads sound terrible.  +1  Fiberskin is a mute; Remo suede may be a better option.

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Agreed, the one I have came on my Gold Tone CC-OT and I replaced it right away with a Renaissance head.

quote:

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Originally posted by Dry Ridge

Agreed, the one I have came on a Gold Tone CC-OT and I replaced it right away with a Renaissance head.

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I also agree with you about fiberskins - partly. On many banjos they fail, but I also have heard banjos, where it sounded both loud and open - mysterious. Right now I have danish Peter B. Five string resonator banjo with it and it sounds great. I needed the skin it had before for an other banjo, and the fiber was all I had to replace it, so I put it on, and now I don´t want to change it. But not all banjos like it, and it is my impression thaf fiberskins have to be tuned tighter than other heads to sound good. That is my experience. Others may disagree. Steen Steen

Is there any way to shrink a head that has stretched to the point the flesh ring is bottoming out on the heel cutout? I would love to keep this old goatskin head instead of fitting a new one. Would wetting it and letting it dry in place on the tone ring before refitting the tension hoop work or is it a matter of once it has stretched out it won’t shrink back down again?

An aside: Can soneone briefly explain what "bottomed out" means in this context? Thanks!

Here is my situation. I like the sound, but this looks very uneven. Will this become a problem or is it one already? Or should I just let it be? Advice?