In order to have the strings hit the bridge at the right angle, it is critical to work this out in advance. A store-bought banjo has a slight downward angle of the neck in relation to the banjo head. This allows the strings to fall across the bridge at the correct height, so they're not too high off the strings near the end of the fretboard. Because I got it right, I didn't have to do any fudging of the bridge nor filing of the frets. It played beautifully right from the string-up! In order to accomplish this, I had to make a scarf-joint cut on the part of the neck that passed under the lid. I used a strip of veneer on the end to hide the cut after I glued the pieces, in reverse, back together.
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