Gotoh UKB friction tuners

Hello there,

I've just bought set of Gotoh UKB tuning pegs from a friend who is a luthier. I am eager to put them on my soprano ukulele but it will take some time for me to get into workshop and play around with these a bit, fill holes after open geared tuners etc... I am just curious if any of you have any experience with these? They are rather inexpensive so I am worried a bit of drilling my lovely uke and finding out these does not hold the uke tuned. I have no experience with friction tuners whatsoever. I think Gotoh should be fine, is that so?

Hi Jerwin, your Luthier friend should be able to provide good advice, I would start there.

Camsuke said:

Hi Jerwin, your Luthier friend should be able to provide good advice, I would start there.

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Well, he builds guitars and mandolins mainly. He has no personal experience with these... Don't you think I asked him?

Jerwin said:

Well, he builds guitars and mandolins mainly. He has no personal experience with these... Don't you think I asked him?

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Sorry mate, I didn't mean to offend. Any luthier should be able to offer good advice regarding the fitting of hardware, even if they do not build ukuleles.

I personally never see why everyone hates on friction tuners. I quite like them when they're good quality. I'm sure Gotoh's will be good. They work great on Soprano's. Post some before/after pics!

Camsuke said:

Sorry mate, I didn't mean to offend. Any luthier should be able to offer good advice regarding the fitting of hardware, even if they do not build ukuleles.

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You did not offend me at all! He loves Gotoh. As I said, He can't be sure if he has no personal experience or any feedback from users. It's not so huge uke community in the Czech rep. I believe I was the first one to buy uke friction pegs from him and I am quite sure he is one of the biggest hardware suppliers in the Czech Rep.

Jerwin said:

Well, he builds guitars and mandolins mainly. He has no personal experience with these... Don't you think I asked him?

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Jerwin,
I am so confused. You said you bought these from "a luthier friend" but he didn't install them?
You go on to state that he "builds guitars and mandolins"; but he can't drill four holes of equal size on a drill press/or freehand on a headstock and then fill the screw holes with wood glue and sawdust? Sounds like the worst luthier in the world.

Can you please post a link to your luthier friend's website? I am just curious as to what kinds of instruments he produces.
Thanks,
Johnson

Jerwin said:

Hello there,

I've just bought set of Gotoh UKB tuning pegs from a friend who is a luthier. I am eager to put them on my soprano ukulele but it will take some time for me to get into workshop and play around with these a bit, fill holes after open geared tuners etc... I am just curious if any of you have any experience with these? They are rather inexpensive so I am worried a bit of drilling my lovely uke and finding out these does not hold the uke tuned. I have no experience with friction tuners whatsoever. I think Gotoh should be fine, is that so?

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johnson430 said:

Jerwin,
I am so confused. You said you bought these from "a luthier friend" but he didn't install them?
You go on to state that he "builds guitars and mandolins"; but he can't drill four holes of equal size on a drill press/or freehand on a headstock and then fill the screw holes with wood glue and sawdust? Sounds like the worst luthier in the world.

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I don't see anywhere in the post where the OP states the luthier couldn't or wouldn't install them. It sounds to me like he wants to install them himself and was just wondering about the quality of the friction tuners prior to going through the work of putting them on.

I too like good friction pegs (bad ones are horrible and give the rest a bad name!) on soprano and concert ukuleles. While I have not had any experience with these specific tuners, Gotoh generally produce good pegs, so I think these would work well.

WCBarnes said:

I don't see anywhere in the post where the OP states the luthier couldn't or wouldn't install them. It sounds to me like he wants to install them himself and was just wondering about the quality of the friction tuners prior to going through the work of putting them on.

I too like good friction pegs (bad ones are horrible and give the rest a bad name!) on soprano and concert ukuleles. While I have not had any experience with these specific tuners, Gotoh generally produce good pegs, so I think these would work well.

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I even said I am eager to change them!

Jerwin said:

I even said I am eager to change them!

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My bad.
Good luck.

WCBarnes said:

I don't see anywhere in the post where the OP states the luthier couldn't or wouldn't install them. It sounds to me like he wants to install them himself and was just wondering about the quality of the friction tuners prior to going through the work of putting them on.

I too like good friction pegs (bad ones are horrible and give the rest a bad name!) on soprano and concert ukuleles. While I have not had any experience with these specific tuners, Gotoh generally produce good pegs, so I think these would work well.

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Thanks for the clarification. And I agree with you about good friction tuners.
But the UKB?
They are the cheapest Gotoh tuner you can buy at $6.45 for 4. That screams low quality to me.
Here is link to the 6.45 price:
https://secureuke.com/friction-tuning-pegs-builders-gotoh-ukb-white-buttons-set-of-4.html

That is definitely on the lower end price wise.

Baz Maz did an excellent review of friction tuners where he took them apart and identified where the good ones excelled. Since Jerwin already has the pegs out already it should be very easy to tell the quality of the peg

http://www.gotaukulele.com/2014/03/a-look-inside-ukulele-friction-tuners.html

Edit: After watching Baz's video and looking at the images on the link Johnson provided, I think these might work out ok. While you can't tell a whole lot from the pictures, they appear to be metal pieces which should hold/work well, but on the negative side, from the image there doesn't seem to be a lot of parts like what are found on the higher end pegs. I would take them apart and see all the pieces. Look at the materials and quality of the pieces and go from there. Good luck Jerwin. If you don't mind reporting back and letting us know what you find I would appreciate it.

WCBarnes said:

That is definitely on the lower end price wise.

Baz Maz did an excellent review of friction tuners where he took them apart and identified where the good ones excelled. Since Jerwin already has the pegs out already it should be very easy to tell the quality of the peg

http://www.gotaukulele.com/2014/03/a-look-inside-ukulele-friction-tuners.html

Edit: After watching Baz's video and looking at the images on the link Johnson provided, I think these might work out ok. While you can't tell a whole lot from the pictures, they appear to be metal pieces which should hold/work well, but on the negative side, from the image there doesn't seem to be a lot of parts like what are found on the higher end pegs. I would take them apart and see all the pieces. Look at the materials and quality of the pieces and go from there. Good luck Jerwin. If you don't mind reporting back and letting us know what you find I would appreciate it.

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I will during next few days... They seem nice.

most all friction tuner are the same. Gotohs just look fancier if you got the gold plated one. Gotoh also makes deluxe version at $45 or the gear version UPT's. for the price of the regular friction tuners, pay a little more and get the deluxe version, either gotoh or grover ($10- $15) etc...

as for the install, if you need to drill a larger hole to fit the grommet i suggest to use a Reamer,($5)
using a drill will misalign all your holes while drilling UNLESS you are using a Drill Press and clamp the headstock. sorry for the pidgin. good luck have fun

I'd like to open this thread up once again if I may. I am also in the same boat trying to replace really heavy geared tuners on my Kala-SMS soprano with Grover 2B friction tuners. Easy pezy, right? Not so much. I popped off the old tuner and lo and behold, surprise...the hole was huge!
I put the Grover in anyway, but the hole is too big for it to actually grip and induce friction. The entire tuner turned inside the hole. Suggestions?

Zambezi Zelda said:

I'd like to open this thread up once again if I may. I am also in the same boat trying to replace really heavy geared tuners on my Kala-SMS soprano with Grover 2B friction tuners. Easy pezy, right? Not so much. I popped off the old tuner and lo and behold, surprise...the hole was huge!
I put the Grover in anyway, but the hole is too big for it to actually grip and induce friction. The entire tuner turned inside the hole. Suggestions?

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I am not a luthier, but I've seen this question before, and the common wisdom was if the holes are too wide for the bushing to properly bite into the wood on the inside of the hole, in order to prevent rotation of the bushing, you need to find a dowel rod (local hardware store) that has an outside diameter close in diameter to the INSIDE of the hole, and plug the hole with gluing in the dowel, sanding or cutting it flush, staining/finishing the wood colors to match, and then drilling new holes to the proper diameter of the new tuner bushing.

This is not a 5 min procedure, more like a weekend project, provided you have the right tools.

Also, I have used the Grover 6B friction tuners (https://www.grotro.com/Grover/UKULELE/Ukulele-Pegs-Set-of-4), which the bushing for the string-end of the shaft is a slightly larger diameter, and these tuners are $18 with free shipping, and perform MUCH better than the 2B, which the 2B are the cheapest possible pegs made by Grover and the ones I had pulled off and upgraded, that were the 2B set, I just threw them in the garbage.

See here: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/6BBlackButton

Also, I am very surprised that the shaft holes for the geared tuners are too wide for the bushing of the friction tuners. Most geared tuners for ukulele have no larger than a 1/4" diameter shaft, and either a 5/16" or 3/8" outer-diameter bushing.

What diameter is the TUNER hole as it is now? Maybe you have these tuners pre-installed? You can tell by the shape of the metal plate and that GROVER is stamped into the plate: https://www.grotro.com/Grover/UKULELE/Sta-Tite-9-Series-Geared-Ukulele-Pegs

Hope this helps.

Not sure, Booli. They came stock on the Kala. (Edit: I looked at the picture you sent me the link for, and failed to note mine are closed machine tuners. My bad)
I'm with you on filling the holes with the dowels and then drilling to the proper tuner size, but just to lighten the head of a $150 ukulele, it doesn't seem really worth it. I may just send these Grovers back to Amazon and call it a day.

Zambezi Zelda said:

Not sure, Booli. They came stock on the Kala. (Edit: I looked at the picture you sent me the link for, and failed to note mine are closed machine tuners. My bad)
I'm with you on filling the holes with the dowels and then drilling to the proper tuner size, but just to lighten the head of a $150 ukulele, it doesn't seem really worth it. I may just send these Grovers back to Amazon and call it a day.

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Most closed-gear machine heads have a 3/8" or 10mm in metric diameter hole. As you've found, this hole will be too wide for most friction tuners.

The only option I've found for tuners with less weight and emulating the LOOK of friction tuners are the Gotoh UPT planetary tuners, which cost about $60, and if not ebay from random sellers, the only other places in the USA that I've found to buy them are The Ukulele Site/HMS via http://www.theukulelesite.com/accessories/more/tuners/gotoh-upt-tuner-upgrade.html or https://www.japarts.ca.

With the UPTs they come in normal, and UPT-L with a longer shaft for thicker headstocks. You need to measure the thickness of your headstock to see which you need. HMS has a video with Joel showing the installation, and the dimensions are in a diagram on the japarts web site in the a spec diagram here: http://www.japarts.ca/Gotoh/Gotoh-Products-UPT.asp.



I have installed the Gotoh UPT-L tuners on both my concert Flea and my Martin 0XK soprano. Friction tuners hate me and I don't have the patience for the constant over-tuning and under-tuning to find the sweet spot, so I usually replace friction tuners with something else.

Is the uke so head heavy with the tuners that came on it? Most folks will just fit a strap button to the butt end, and tie the other strap end to the headstock behind the nut, and this will fix the head droop and balance issues. Strap buttons cost like $5/pair everywhere and do take about 5-10 mins to be installed, and you can use any strap you like, or even a black bootlace or black paracord which is what I use because I find even 3/4" straps to be cumbersome, especially on a soprano.

They sell 54cm and 72cm black round nylon bootlaces in pairs for $1.99 at the local grocery store, which is fine for me since I am frugal to the core.

It's not so much that it's that heavy (although it is extremely off-balance) it's more that I'm trying to learn proper technique as a beginner. Using a strap, makes me feel like I'm cheating.

Zambezi Zelda said:

It's not so much that it's that heavy (although it is extremely off-balance) it's more that I'm trying to learn proper technique as a beginner. Using a strap, makes me feel like I'm cheating.

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There's NO SHAME in using a strap.

Whomever told you this is a complete moron and is ignorant. 'Proper technique' can include a strap. MOST folks here on UU use a strap, even with a soprano.

This is NOT the 1800's where 'suffering' is a social norm. YOU can DO what YOU feel comfortable with.

For ME, using a strap lets me focus on fretting and plucking/strumming and not WASTE energy in my arms to try and pressure the ukulele against my ribs. But that's just me.

There are NO rules about using a strap. If it feels like cheating, then maybe you have internalized the dogma from an obsolete paradigm? In the end, you can do what you want, and I will not judge you, nor should anyone else.

Carry on brother! :music: