Changed cheap heavy geared tuners to even cheaper Gotoh UKB friction tuners

Jerwin

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After changing the tuners, the center of gravity at the ukulele moved up 3 frets up the neck. It feels much better now. The heavy headstock on my favourite soprano ukulele was bothering me quite a lot before. These are around 40g against 78 the old geared ones. They work very smooth and they seem to hold the tuning just fine. I just need to apply the finish to the botto of the headstock and polish it a little bit. Afterall, I think I might have grabbed Gotoh geared tuners which were +- the same price and even 1g lighter!... They had nice small buttons and still I think geared tuners may be a bit more confortable sicne u don't need to deal with 1:1 ratio.

I made these mahogany pieces for the nickel part to be sink in a bit. The set-up works very well for the cheapest Gotoh tuners on the market. The uke was built but not completely finished by my friend when he was at his luthier studies. It was made in 2006 and then hanging around in his workshop. Headstock had some dents in soft cedar plate so I reworked it a bit with rosewood and inlayed maple JT which stands for Jerwin Trius (my nickname used from childhood, friends signature is inside ofc). I was working on it at work when I had free moments which is not much so it could be done better but is not awful too. Handrubbed tung oil finish on all uke with open pores. Resonates incredible. You can see the saddle I had to make because I failed putting bridge into the correct position. The ukulele intonates absolutely spot on all along the fingerboard now. The saddle piece compensation was kinda an awful work to be done. If you ever been working with bone u must agree.
Top plate is made of spruce, back and sides are mahogany. The particular sapele was idle for 40 years before it was used. Sounds aged and great imo.

There are both variants enclosed: with geared and friction tuners.
 

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Great job! As I mentioned in your other post asking about the tuners, I love friction tuners on a soprano. As you noted, the weight is so much better! The Gotoh UPT geared tuners are also very nice! I have them on 3 of my 4 concerts. My other complaint with traditional geared tuners is that it looks like "ears" sticking out. I think your uke looks 100 times better now! (and it looked very nice before!) It looks like you have a very nice little uke!!
 
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