I have two fretless banjos. One is a Dobson from some time in the 1800s with friction pegs. The other uses the small pot with resonator from a pre-World War I banjo mandolin, with a custom made neck that has modern geared pegs. I keep the one with geared pegs strung with steel strings, and the Dobson, with its ivory friction pegs, came to me with steel strings on it, but it never stayed in tune, had an action that was too stiff, and was pretty hard to tune in the first place. Now I keep it strung with nylon kitchen chord...supposedly for trussing up a chicken. I unwound some of the string for the thinner strings, and leave it wound for the thicker strings. It works just fine, and has a lovely mellow tone. I keep it tuned one and a half tones low.