A few years ago I bought a fairly nice F style mandola (the story is here someplace) that I have thus far enjoyed. Being an equipment geek I always wanted to upgrade the tuners and tailpiece. The problem was that the tuners installed were worm over tuners and there hasn't been a whole lot available in the last few years. Yes, you can get Rubner's when they are available. I did but couldn't get past the black stems. I have managed to hoard a set of worm over Gold Schallers with real MOP buttons, a set of nickel Schallers, and a set of Gotoh nickel tuners. I even managed to get pearl buttons for the Gotoh's and changed out the Phillips head screws for slot head screws. All good fun but I was always looking for a set of Worm over Waverly tuners. I could never bring myself to take off the no-name brand tuners that were on the mandola so they've never been changed and I'll note I never had any tuning problems caused by the tuners. My ears are another story.
Worm over Waverly tuners are something that Stewmac (the manufacturer) won't even admit to being available. I seem to recall that they were available years ago but maybe that's just my old mind playing tricks on me. Sam Bush has a set on his Gibson. Sam Bush is even one of the players Stewmac quotes as using them and loving them. In the past few months we've had a set that showed up here and I learned of another set for sale elsewhere. I managed to buy one of the two, fulfilling my illogical desire to own a pair.
I say illogical because to be quite honest I'm not sure why I want to own Waverly tuners. I have them on my F5G. I installed them a while back after buying that set used as well. They are great tuners but I'm not sure if they are 6 times more expensive than most tuners better. It doesn't matter I have always wanted them and now I have a set for both of my F style instruments. Conspicuous consumption.
I've just started cleaning up the new set and thought I'd compare them physically to some of the other tuners over the next few days. If you've ever wondered what they looked like up close here it is.
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