Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on August 8, 2013 at 7:19pm

You'll never go back :)

Here's my tips..

* You don't necessarily NEED the push in bushing on top, depends how good your drilling..

* drill for the tuners before you cut the head to shape, and design around the tuner placement..

* all the tuners on a given side of the head should be equally spaced, it looks kinda shit when they're not.. BUT.. Using a slightly different number for spacing em on the other side can work great

*always put the gear beyond the post

If you have an iPhone/iPad I'm finishing up an application that has a head design aspect, I can sign you up as a beta tester if you're interested :)

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Permalink Reply by Jon Leslie/Runaway Veal Music on August 8, 2013 at 8:09pm

Not sure what the bushing is ...I'd be interested in the head design

iPhone ...let me know how to get the app

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Permalink Reply by Slowpaw Steve T on August 8, 2013 at 8:08pm

i always use the metal bushes, plastic ones are useless - lot of pull on that peg will otherwise eventually come loose and turn in. putting a strain on the tuning gear. Remember to have the little brass cogs at the bottom below the screw otherwise the screw will slip. 6mm hole for the post, 7mm hole for the metal bush.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Leslie/Runaway Veal Music on August 8, 2013 at 8:25pm

Sorry I'm new at this ...what are metal bushes and brass cogs? That looks fantastic !!!

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Permalink Reply by Slowpaw Steve T on August 8, 2013 at 9:03pm

you'll see when you get your tuners (-:

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Permalink Reply by Jon Leslie/Runaway Veal Music on August 8, 2013 at 9:13pm

Do they come with the tuners?

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on August 9, 2013 at 12:12am

If you got em from gitty they come with plastic ones, it's an insignificant upgrade (maybe a dollar or something) to get the metal ones instead.

I'm not sure if I agree that it will eventually come loose without, probably depends how well you drilled it.

Nb (this is not intended as any sort of criticism or getting personal ok) if you look at Steve's pic there he has two tuners on one side of the head and he's wrapped the string around those in different directions, clockwise on one, anti clockwise on the other.. I personally would never ever do this, it makes tuning up extremely counter intuitive because turning one key clockwise raises the note where on the next it flats it.. I know guys do this in order to avoid adding wings to the head but for me I can't think of much worse, if a strings slightly out of tune and I give that tuning key a quick crank while I'm playing I need it to behave the same way as all my other guitars do. Old dog new tricks I suppose, f style mandolins drive me crazy for this exact reason too.

These budget tuners of gittys are my favourite for slot heads btw



The iPhone application I'm talking about is my fret calculator but the features I'm talking about (a head designer that draws those exact tuners among others, full suze printouts etc) are not on the shelf yet, this is for v3.0 which I'm currently building. Ill be recruiting beta testers very soon (around 20 people/devices) however and you can try it for free. You'll need a computer running iTunes to install the binary and you require at least ios5 let me know if you're interested.

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Permalink Reply by Slowpaw Steve T on August 9, 2013 at 12:47am

i see what you mean but i always aim to give the strings the straightest run off the nut to the peg if i can, and live with them going in opposite directions, there are only 3 ! (-:

 ....i noticed in the above photo PK your tuner pegs are bending, even if you use bushes on this arrangement they will bend, better to narrow the slot until the top end of the peg is supported by a hole in the opposite "wall"? There are special tuning pegs that are designed for fitting into a slot (-:

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on August 9, 2013 at 1:17am

They sure are eh :D
I'm pretty sure they 'have bent' more than are bending.. Those two are quite stable. Theres also a bit of taper to both those heads which means that the posts on each side are not perpendicular and makes it probly look worse than it is. The 'walls' on the sides of the slot on te second one are clearly far too thin and im aksing a lot of those posts, the string has more leverage to bend that post than it would if the post were supported further along its length. I've done plenty with narrower slots that the post manages to span and you're quite right, the budget ones are better suited to that, I probly should've picked better photos and for a slot that's too wide for the post to span (which brings other advantages, ie much less fiddly to restring..)
I actually do prefer the cheap schaller/gotoh copies with the nut that screw on from the other side eg

But yes ur def right, a narrow slot like this is what those budget gitty ones are well suited to

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Permalink Reply by Slowpaw Steve T on August 9, 2013 at 2:24am

i do prefer sealed tuners, used the open ones on a series of budget builds but quite pleased with their durability .. if they do become a little loose a sharp hammer tap on the "claw" towards the cog will do the trick (-:

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Permalink Reply by Bama Hound on August 9, 2013 at 5:31am

I have learned the hard way. Never do any machining of any kind to accommodate any piece of hardware not physically in your hand. If you do, sooner or later something will get on backordered or when you get it it doesn't look like you thought it would. Find something else to work on until your stuff arrives. P.S. Is your avatar a Greyhound?  

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Permalink Reply by Yankee Dog on August 9, 2013 at 3:53pm

dont over think it. drill a hole and push them through. it will work fine.

 

 

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