Tuner question

[Oliver R]

Hello fellas,
Just been messing about with an old German flatback here...
http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...1-Old-flatback

The old tuners were basically scrap, I have a set of Grover type tuners that fit but unfortunately the headstock is so narrow (front to back) that the posts will be far to long effectively causing little or no brake-angle over the nut.
Any ideas where I could get a set of short post tuners?
My other idea was to make some sort of wooden spacers to fit on the back of the headstock but they might look a bit weird..
Any suggestions gratefully received.
Cheers
Oliver

[Pribar]

I had a old tenor guitar with a similar problem, I ended up making a kind of thick veneer out of ebony for the back of the head and tapered it to fade into the original as it met the neck, and a real thin veneer of the same material for the face so it looked to be a decorative sandwich touch, it didn't look too bad and did the job, just a suggestion in case ya can't find proper tuners for it .

[Oliver R]

That was kind of what I was thinking but just making the veneer the exact shape as the outside profile of the tuners. (not covering the entire back).
That said, your idea of a veneer covering the complete back of the headstock would add much needed strength.

[Pribar]

found these on Ebay, they are designed to be embedded in the headstock, as such they are shorter than normal, however they probably are non standard spacing too, ya might be able to get the seller to post measurements.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/COMPLETE-SET...item3f187770ef