Tuning machines: whats your favorite and why?

[Tavy]

i was thinking that he was talking about being built into the back of the headstock. So that you wouldnt see the gears, theyd be covered by wood, all you would see is the posts on the front and the knobs/shafts.

Sort of like the tuners on old bowlbacks where the back of the headstock is covered with a metal plate.

Ive never seen these done like that before, but thats what i assumed he meant

Yes indeed, but like I said, you would need a very thick headstock to cover the backs of the tuners and not have a crazy amount sticking out front. You could make it all hollow I suppose to keep the weight down, but the headstock would still look a bit weird being that thick. Maybe wouldn't be so bad on a guitar or something with a larger headstock anyway.

BTW I've always liked the old enclosed style bowlback tuners - where the gears are sandwiched between two metal plates - from an engineering point of view I always felt these were a better solution than the single plate (even if it's a modern chunky die-cast one).

[Ray(T)]

Ray: On some of the Alessi tunnig machines, there is a decorative pearl or wooden circle that covers the screw on the back of the big gear.

The price of Alessi depends upon the currency rates, but generally they are about $100 less than a set of Waverly if you get a basic model. Custom inlays and engraving can add much more to the price.

I’ve seen photos of the ones with the decorative cover but mine are the ones which look something like a rivet head. No idea of the price although I suspect it’s likely to be different on this side of the Atlantic. I did once try to order a set for my GBOM but I never received a reply to my email so I ended up with a set of Robsons which work fine.

The stable has all manner of tuners; Waverley, Alessi, Robson, Gotho etc. but, if price was an issue, I’d personally go for Schaller!

[Ray(T)]

I'm not sure that "built-in" is correct at all - the posts are quite long so you'd have to have a mighty thick headstock to do that. I believe the Gotoh website mentions that it has been done, but I haven't seen it, and they certainly don't say that is the intention.

I've used them on my travel mandolins because they're so small and light, so you can shrink the headstock size down quite a bit (if that's what you want).



They are not particularly easy to fit - you need a smaller hole at the rear than the front - and the body of the mechanism is barely any larger than the post diameter so the everything does need to be super-neat and precise.

Very nice and smooth though.

Thanks Tavy, that’s the first time I’ve actually seen them on an instrument. Given the length of the shafts, I suspect that they’re really intended for guitar headstocks which have signifficantly more wood to play with.

[amowry]

I've used the Stealth tuners on a few instruments too-- they're great when you need to fit ten or more on a headstock. They have a bit more backlash than I would like, but that's pretty normal for mando tuners, and other than that they seem good.

[LongBlackVeil]

I just got my rubners installed on my a9 today. They work very well, a definite upgrade from the schaller/grovers that were on there, though there was nothing wrong with them

My only complaint is that it seems the newly designed a style rubners really stick out kind of far. Might just take some getting used to the look.