Like Wade I sometimes play a 6 string guitjo and an 8 string banjolin. The banjolin is built by someone unknown and marketed by William C. Stahl from the early 1930's, with a dowel-neck. I needed to shim the neck, redrill the dowel, replace the bridge and some hardware to bring it back to life. I use light (.008) phosphor-bronze strings by Newtone on it, as I don't want too much tension on something that old. The sound is great; I prefer the phosphor bronze strings over the nickel ones I've tried.
My guit-jo was inherited from my duo partner when he died. Its pretty cheapo, Davison brand. It has a single coordinating rod from the neck to the pot. I had to tweak the setup to get the action and intonation right. I currently use medium guitar strings, phosphor bronze, but I switched the low E and A to tune an octave higher to get that banjo reentrant tuning sound. I'm going to try monel strings on it next change.
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