New here, and a question

[JCook]

Hi folks,

I've been reading the mandolin cafe now for quite a while and just decided to join up. I've been playing the mandolin for a little over a year now, but I actually started playing around with it back in the 80's. I've played Celtic fiddle for a fair amount of time, and I began back then to play all my tunes on a cheap (I mean REALLY cheap) mandolin that had no name, and an action height of about a quarter of an inch. An awful thing. I finally bought my present mandolin (a Kentucky KM150S, I think it is) from a friend last May. My main instrument is guitar (fingerpicking blues, Celtic, other esoteric stuff for 44 years) but I am LOVING the mandolin. I want to buy an oval hole A-style mandolin, and I've been looking around. In my price range, I've pretty much decided on the Eastman 604. I've started saving up money for it, but it seems every time I get a couple of hundred dollars saved I end up having to spend it on car repairs. Aaarrrgh!

Anyway, my question - a month or two ago (or three, maybe) I saw a thread somewhere on the forums about how to clean old tuning machines, by taking them apart and clean all the gears and everything. I've searched for this but haven't been able to find it. It's a pretty detailed procedure. Does anyone know which thread I'm talking about and could you point me to it, please? I have an ancient Walliostro banjo mandolin that I'd like to do this to; I think it would make it easier to tune it up.

I'm finding the Mandolin Cafe to be a gold mine of great information and I enjoy reading it every day. I especially like the builder of the day feature. Hope to post more in the future.

Jack

[bennyb]

Howdy Jack,
Welcome aboard. I don't know(remember?) the thread you're referring to, but here's a page from Paul Hostetter on the subject. There's also this page from Frank Ford. You may just need a little lube, or you may want to go to reconditioning.

What I do using the above guidelines: With no strings attached, register with mind and hands how stiffly the tuners turn(so you'll know if you actually iimproved anything). Remove the tuners from the mando, do a superficial cleanup with a toothbrush. Mix up some (mostly)toothpaste(medium) and some(a little) baking soda(grit) and smoodge it onto the worm and ring gears. Spin(using peg winder) each tuner forwards and backwards xteen times. Wash and spin with warm or hot water to remove toothpaste, etc. Dry completely. Using Paul's diagrams, lube the various points with tri flow. If they don't feel ten times better, it wasn't worth it. But they will.
The above is all done with tuners off the mando.

Or you may just need a little lube. :-)

Hope this helps, benny

[JEStanek]

Welcome to the Mandolin Café as a poster!

This is Paul Hostetter's page on tuner maintenance that I think you're looking for.

Jamie

EDIT: Benny beat me to it! Good service.

[JCook]

Thanks Jamie and benny,

The Paul Hostetter page is exactly what I was looking for. I'm familiar with Frank Ford's website, but I hadn't seen that page on it. This'll be a weekend project for me very soon.

Jack