dkame
Well-known member
I decided to change out the stock friction tuners on my Kamaka tenor built in the early 1990’s. After hearing good things about the Gotoh planetary geared tuners (4:1 ratio), I wanted to install these. The one concern I had was that I would have to drill out the holes in the headstock for the larger diameter Gotohs. I would need to go from a nominal 21/64” diameter to 3/8” diameter. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of doing irreversible modifications (damage?) to a very expensive instrument. But after a couple of weeks of fighting the tuning on new strings and reading the forums, I convinced myself that there was more upside here.
Info on the Gotoh tuners can be found at:
Forum Thread: Uke Talk, Gotoh Planetary Tuners
http://www.g-gotoh.com/international/?btp_product_category=ukulele-pegs
or
http://www.japarts.ca/Gotoh/Gotoh-Products-UPT.asp
From the Gotoh website, UPT is for 10mm-12mm (0.39”–0.47”) and UPTL is for 11.5mm-13.5mm (0.45”-0.53”). The headstock on my tenor Kamaka is 0.51” so the UPTL was the correct version for this install. I got my tuners through Hawaii Music Supply (aka HMS, aka The Ukulele Site) using the UU special discount, but you could also get parts from japarts where there are more styles available.
I chose the gold with black ovals UPTL-UBB-G. It is important to note that overall “size” of this Gotoh tuner/button is smaller than the stock friction tuners on the tenor Kamaka, more like the size of the tuners on my soprano Kamaka. If you want to keep closer to the same scale of appearance on a tenor, the UB4 “tulip” shaped button looks a bit bigger. The photo shows the comparison between the original on the top and the Gotoh on the bottom:
I’ll document the whole installation process in subsequent entries. Just so you know, in the end it turned out great and the new tuners are fantastic. I did learn a few things and there are probably more professional approaches – but it can be done by an amateur like me. Let me know if you have questions and I’ll try to answer them.
Also, I'm new to posting - can anyone tell me how to insert the photos directly into the post? Or do they just need to be attachments?
Info on the Gotoh tuners can be found at:
Forum Thread: Uke Talk, Gotoh Planetary Tuners
http://www.g-gotoh.com/international/?btp_product_category=ukulele-pegs
or
http://www.japarts.ca/Gotoh/Gotoh-Products-UPT.asp
From the Gotoh website, UPT is for 10mm-12mm (0.39”–0.47”) and UPTL is for 11.5mm-13.5mm (0.45”-0.53”). The headstock on my tenor Kamaka is 0.51” so the UPTL was the correct version for this install. I got my tuners through Hawaii Music Supply (aka HMS, aka The Ukulele Site) using the UU special discount, but you could also get parts from japarts where there are more styles available.
I chose the gold with black ovals UPTL-UBB-G. It is important to note that overall “size” of this Gotoh tuner/button is smaller than the stock friction tuners on the tenor Kamaka, more like the size of the tuners on my soprano Kamaka. If you want to keep closer to the same scale of appearance on a tenor, the UB4 “tulip” shaped button looks a bit bigger. The photo shows the comparison between the original on the top and the Gotoh on the bottom:
I’ll document the whole installation process in subsequent entries. Just so you know, in the end it turned out great and the new tuners are fantastic. I did learn a few things and there are probably more professional approaches – but it can be done by an amateur like me. Let me know if you have questions and I’ll try to answer them.
Also, I'm new to posting - can anyone tell me how to insert the photos directly into the post? Or do they just need to be attachments?