Wacky tuning issue

JohnM2001 said:

FYI, Outdoor emailed me back saying that yes, the headstock on my OU v1 is hollow, as are the newer ones, and they don't use any special backing plates or fasteners to secure the geared Gotohs they use now. If changing mine to the same geared Gotohs they use, they advised proceeding slowly when drilling the mounting holes, to avoid cracking anything. If I try it, I'll use a drill bit slightly smaller than the Gotoh mounting screws. Another benefit will be that the tuning pegs will be a bit further away from the nut. The location of the friction tuners now can sometimes crowd your hand on some cowboy chords...oh, that's all I know so far!

View attachment 98650View attachment 98651

Click to expand...

Hm. Interesting....Every time I've replaced friction tuners with those particular Grover geared tuners (stewmac.com is where I get them: http://www.stewmac.com/Hardware_and..._Machines/Grover_Ukulele_Tuning_Machines.html) I've had to also ream out the peg hole on the headstock. On these OU's there's a thickened solid ring around the peghole itself, which I suspected would disappear if reaming that hole out....not good.
I was thinking there were also thickened little rings molded in where the set screws went on the new OUs...I may be wrong about that last thing...but as for the first thing I said about the reaming, it has always been that way when going from friction to those Grover gears....I'm skeptical about it really working...

EDIT: Okay wait I found one friction peg that requires the same peghole: http://www.stewmac.com/Hardware_and...over_Champion_Dulcimer_Uke_Friction_Pegs.html
If that's the one they used originally maybe it woud work. The others definitely use smaller pegholes.
Hm. Interesting. If it will fit, I'd still suggest putting some Loctite on the set screws as they go in at least. they won't have anything to grab onto and could easily strip.

I think I see what you're saying. Maybe at the top (face side of the headstock) where the bushings are it's a tighter fit?
I took off the stock tuners and replaced them with Grover 4B temporarily, before I sent it back, and those were a lot better and smoother...but still I'm a geared tuner guy all the way.

Looks like you did a nice job, John! I'm glad you were able to make it work. See, that was my worry with reaming... I didn't want to break through the reinforced edges. You did a better job describing those than me probably...but that's what I was trying to say earlier.

I'm planning to get another soprano for myself...but not sure when their shipping is going to start up again or where I'm at on the wait list.

JohnM2001 said:

I think shipping stopped due to some new molding facility problems, but their site says shipping was to resume March 22nd.

Click to expand...

Yeah they changed molders completely, so there was a gap while doing that. Then there was a one week delay on when they thought they'd get their first new parts back. That's a lot less delay than the originals, thankfully. I was a bit worried.
They just posted a note on Facebook a few hours ago that sopranos are back in production. Tenor parts haven't arrived yet.

Might be the plastic expanding as it warms up when you hold it against your body. Plastic will expand a lot more than wood when it warms up. As you play that first song the plastic ukulele body expands so the strings will get tighter and go sharp.