Hopefully the photos are attached!

Do you want to use that neck, and tune it as a piccolo banjo (an octave above standard)?
Or make a longer-scaled neck and tune it at standard pitch?

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Originally posted by Lilly

I have a banjolin from around the 1930s that I would like to use as a 5 string travel banjo tuned to open G. There are no identifying clues on it. Can anyone advise me? Recommendations on brand and gauge of strings, bridge, railroad spike or 5th string capo, and other useful suggestions based on experience that will allow me to do this. I would like to accomplish the conversion with minimal modifications and cost. Thank you

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Given that it has the 'zero' fret (fretwire that sits in front of the nut), I suspect either French or italian made. Juswt my 2c worth.

Im with Wayne, looks Italian, probsbly EKO. To take a tiny scale and tune to standard takes much heavier strings. I bought a tiny 5 string off Amazon, and went thru couple sets of heavy strings from something I can’t recall, to get it to tune to G and not be floppy noodle strings.

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Originally posted by Brett

Im with Wayne, looks Italian, probsbly EKO. To take a tiny scale and tune to standard takes much heavier strings. I bought a tiny 5 string off Amazon, and went thru couple sets of heavy strings from something I can’t recall, to get it to tune to G and not be floppy noodle strings.

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A MB has an even shorter scale than those mini 5-stringers, short enough to tune a full octave above standard pitch.  I doubt there's any sort of strings that would be even barely tolerable, either to play or to hear, at standard G on a scale that short.

I've made a few little travel franken-banjos from small-diameter pots by either fashioning a complete new neck or simply gluing a fitted "bump" onto the existing neck to accommodate the fifth string.
I agree with Dan that the tuning -- and thus string sizes, steel or nylon -- depends on the scale length. Mine are tuned variously, but higher than standard G.

Shorter scale lengths require heavier strings to maintain tension and not be super slinky snd floppy. The little piece of junk i made a travel is sbout $120 or so on Amazon, called Lotkey. I used nylguts and according to dial indicator are first .29, second .32, third .42, fourth .32 wound, fifth .30. I also doweled fifth hole and moved fifth peg up to 6th fret to improve hand room and not running into the fifth peg so much. However, I have larger hands so you might not run into 5th peg , which was at 4th fret stock on the “Lotkey” mini five string Thats cheap on Amazon.

The Lotkey travel 5 string neck fingerboard is 12” nut to end. I guess a mandolin banjo fingerboard might be 8”, or 9”, nut to end. So, those gauges i provided would have to be thicker.
While I cannot recall, I think I wanted to tune in open A, so I could follow fiddlers snd put in sawmill tuning for D. Most jams with fiddlers spend a lot of time in A or D. Ive seen slot of old tenors converted with piece of wood glued to neck side, or piece of metal bolted on. Those are usually tuned open A. Or open D with sawmill tuning or double C.