1918 A Tuners

[Jim P.]

I recently acquired a nice 1918 A. It's in good shape except the tuners are quite worn and have significant backlash in them. I would not care to replace the tuners since they have a nice patina in keeping with the age of the mando. Is there any thing that can be done here?

Any info appreciated

J

[William Smith]

I recently acquired a nice 1918 A. It's in good shape except the tuners are quite worn and have significant backlash in them. I would not care to replace the tuners since they have a nice patina in keeping with the age of the mando. Is there any thing that can be done here?

Any info appreciated

J

You could buy some cheaper tuners from that era and cannibalize the parts? or
Well if ya want to replace Charles Johnson-MandoWorld Headquarters has a nice set for sale with "Handel" buttons for maybe 700 bucks?

[fatt-dad]

Hopefully you are familiar with these:

http://www.stewmac.com/Hardware_and_...in_Tuners.html

They make these to the correct spacing and you can buy them, "Reliced." I have these on two of my mandolins and they are great!

f-d

[Tobin]

Have you disassembled, cleaned, oiled, reassembled, and adjusted these old tuning machines?

I won't claim to be an expert, but I'm led to believe that most cases of poorly-working old tuners come down to just needing maintenance. It's pretty rare that they're actually worn or damaged to the point that they can't be made to work well again.

*edit: I'm assuming you've been through these pages? http://frets.com/FretsPages/Musician...geartune1.html (page 3 has some vintage mandolin specific tuner info)

There's also some repair info here, if indeed you do need to replace parts to make your vintage tuning machines work correctly again: http://frets.com/FretsPages/Luthier/...f4gearfix.html

[MikeEdgerton]

Paul Hostetter's Tuner Maintenance Page can be found here. If that doesn't resolve the issue then go for the Stew-mac Golden Age tuners Fatt-dad mentioned above. Modern tuners have a different post spacing. The Stew-macs are meant to be replacements for these tuners.

http://www.stewmac.com/Hardware_and_..._Mandolin.html

[Ray(T)]

The ones in Mike's link are the right ones - I have a set and they're great. The ones in Fatt-dad's link are for modern mandolins - I had a set of thoses but was glad to replace them.

[John Kelly]

I replaced the tuners on an A from your period using the ones mentioned above from Stewmac. We kept the originals in case at some time the owner wanted to sell the instrument on. it's important to get the Golden age as they have the correct spacing. The owner is very happy with the tuners we fitted.

[fatt-dad]

The ones in Mike's link are the right ones - I have a set and they're great. The ones in Fatt-dad's link are for modern mandolins - I had a set of thoses but was glad to replace them.

Oops! Thanks for the catch!

f-d

[Jim P.]

Thanks for all your input!!

I'm going to try some of the advice from Paul Hostetter's Tuner Maintenance Page. According to Paul what I have is 'Slop' in my tuners which I mistakenly called 'Backlash' - a term held over from my days as a machinist. Paul claims slop is not necessarily a bad thing. Barring any success there, I'll go to the Stew-Mac Golden Agers.

[Ray(T)]

Both are calle "Golden Age" but only the ones you want are called "Restoration Tuners".

I found that only the screw holes needed plugging and re-drilling. I kept the original bushes and the original tuners are in storage for whenever I pass the mandolin on. People always suggest restoring the original set but, in my case, I get little satisfaction from fiddling around with such things and would rather have something which works straight out of the box.