You Can’t Stand A Banjo?
 By Geoff Bowers
I don’t suppose there can be many banjo players out there using the typical guitar stands for their instruments who haven’t, sooner or later, seen their pride andjoy go face-first into the floor? I’m certainly no exception. I recently saw a beautiful banjo, worth over two grand when new, do the wild thing into the dust at our local Bluegrass Club in Nottingham. It belonged to a certain Diane - formerly of Leeds fame, who fortunately didn’t see the guy brush past and instigate the near calamity. I think that a potential murder was avoided on that occasion. The very next day I sat down and had a serious debate with my stands! Minor remedial surgery ensued and here, for what it’s worth, is my own solution - short of buying something else for the job.
.. guitar stands simply aren’t Since it’s clear (from the frequency of diving banjos) that, as they come, guitar stands simply aren’t stable enough to be used for the much heavier banjos, then the weight distribution has to be looked at. Even though the stand is inherently unstable for a banjo, it lends itself to disaster when the banjo is placed too near the end of the supporting forks, carrying the centre of gravity right over the front feet. My first step, then, was to bend the forks upwards immediately after they clear the resonator, by about 30 degrees. That eliminates that particular carelessness factor altogether. Lets face it, at the end of a hot smoky set, the call of the bar can easily make putting the poor thing to bed carefully a second priority and I’ve seen the accident happen twice in my own house! And it was no consolation at all that I wasn’t personally responsible. The point is that we must have a stand worthy of the four-figure sums we now frequently lavish on our instruments, and I’m sure that no-one would buy a Rolls Royce fitted with a Skoda hand-brake!
No-one would buy a Rolls Royce Even with that particular stable door shut, instability is still there, so my second step was to bend up the short back leg by about ten degrees to allow the thing to lean back a little more, shifting the centre of gravity just a little further back. My best stand has closing arms for the neck, but for those that don’t, and don’t have the heavy rubber strap between the arms, one of these is easily improvised. These steps won’t makeguitar stands foolproof for banjos of course, but I think it’s the most that can be done if we’re not all going to go out and replace them. There has been a steady flow on the Internet of articles from of similar sufferers, all contributing to the search for the ‘Holy Grail’ of the perfect stand. One ingenious guy suggested that he would simply lengthen the front legs of his guitar stand by say a foot - which, I reckon would be safe up to about 8 on the Richter scale! Still on the Internet - the wealth of experience from some notable American stars, as well as a that of a whole host of ordinary folks, has been concentrated on the problem, with everyone keen to help and be helped. There were glowing recommendations for the vertical multi-instrument stands, both wood and metal, which hang the instruments by the peg head. Those who have them swear by them but I hate to see a heavy banjo held in this way since I’ve now had to do two repair jobs on lovely Mastertones which had their lag bolts adrift. It gave me a near paranoia over folks picking my banjo up by the neck! I dare say the makers of these stands would rightly argue that you must decide which is the greater risk to the banjo - the choice betweenpossible slow destruction or the possibility of a much more rapid death. For those who are about to buy a new stand, a man of no less experience and stature than Jack Hatfield contributed this: “I'mtelling you guys who are intent on spending hundreds of dollars on research and development in order to develop a better banjo stand - the ‘Ultra’ electric guitar stand already has the proper slant to deal with the banjo’s centre of gravity. So, whether it’s replacement or preventative engineering, “Yer pays yer money and yer makes yer choice!” On the other hand… I’m well experienced and capable of good banjo repairs, so perhaps you should ignore all of this and bring me the work? Geoff’ Bowers, Nottingham Write to Geoff
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