friction tuner restoration and maintenance

In various forms, this must have been treated many times before, but as a beginner with more repair and set-up experience with mandolins and guitars than ukes...

Is there a guide to best practice making these friction tuners work their best? This is a 1928 Martin style 0 soprano. I've never done more than slightly loosen or tighten the adjustment screws. They work well, but I think they could work better! How best to dissassemble, clean, lubricate (or the opposite, rosin-ate?). There are thin metal bushings visible from the front.

Feel free to send me to a web site or previous thread if I've missed the perfect one. ;-) And THANKS for sharing any tips.

Roughly speaking, take them apart making sure not to lose any bits. I think those are pretty simple, but some have washers, springs, etc. I'd leave one assembled in the right order while you clean up the others, then reassemble one of those and clean up the last one. That way you won't forget how the parts went together.

Cleaning is simply removing dirt. A damp cloth and a toothbrush might be all your need, naphtha can remove sticky dirt.

For best operation the surfaces which do the friction work need to be smooth and touch each other across their full surface, so any burrs or unevenness could be sanded off (though I doubt you'll find any).

Finally, when reassembling check that the screws don't bottom out before the tuner is suitably tight to turn. The headstock wood compresses over time, which is why this might happen. If the screw bottoms out don't turn it further, as it's easy to strip the thread. Remove a small amount from he end of the screw, and it will then work much better.

That's pretty much it. On cheap/poor tuners I add a crinkle spring washer to put some extra tension into the circuit, but I wouldn't think these will need that.

Thanks Chris. I suspect the originals are Grovers. They have two knurled bands each which might help id them. I see that modern Waverly tuners, available HERE at StewMac have a coil spring inside. And I guess I'll find out if these do when I take them apart.

I take your point about checking the adjustment screws for 'bottoming out' and will do so.

Do uke folks apply wax, or even rosin to the bearing surfaces to help them rotate smoothly, and then 'stick' in place? It seems like clean wood and metal surfaces are probably the best bet.

Prof Chris’s answer set me thinking about friction tuners in general rather than the specific ones mentioned by the OP. As a device they have worked well for countless people but like all devices they need to be made well and then looked after. If they aren’t made in China then Friction Tuners can be relatively expensive in the U.K., so not something to change on a wim. If I had friction tuners then they’d likely be simply built ones, to improve them I’d try to smooth all the surfaces and put extra spring into the method of tension.

I hadn’t thought of there being spring (compression spring) in the headstock wood but maybe there is just enough. Adding the wave washers sounds good to me and folk also add fibre washers, the fibre adds friction and a small amount of spring too I suspect. I’ve always wondered whether this type of tuner would benefit from having more spring within its build. Having everything clean and flat does mean, I think, that the link between surfaces is purely frictional (like a car clutch’s parallel and relatively smooth surfaces) as opposed to a mixture of friction and two rough surfaces structurally (and intermittently) interlinking with each other.

Without wishing to divert the thread I’d be glad to hear more of the Prof’s thoughts on ‘helping’ poor or simple / old fashioned tuners perform better.

Ok, take the cheapest option. Plastic knobs and a plastic cup at the back of the headstock. Like these £1.31 delivered from China, and found on cheap production ukes.



They rarely work at all well.

But if you examine the base of the knob and the base of the cup, there are usually ridges from the moulding process. Sand both flat with fine abrasive and suddenly they work at least adequately.

Add in a pair of thin 5mm washers with a crinkle washer between them, between knob and cup, and they're fairly decent.

Go mad and fill the gaps between the shaft and the inside of the knobs with CA glue (waxing the shaft so you can remove the knob once the glue has dried) and they're not bad at all. But messy if you get it wrong, I'd only bother for a vintage tuner with a worn knob.

So:

1 Good friction surfaces with full contact

2 Enough give so that the tuners turns easily but still holds (some expensive tuners are full of springs and washers so they're both heavy and feel spongy and inexact in use

3 Good fit between knob and shaft

Expensive tuners are like this from the start, so restoration is merely cleaning the friction surfaces.

Don’t do what a bloke here in Stockholm did. He put a set of tuners off of an old Gibson soprano in a cup of something to de-grease them. Might have been alcohol, might have been acetone. The knobs melted and vanished without a trace, leaving the solution amber colored.

The metal parts got really clean.

Another minor improvement is to lubricate the threads of the screw holding it together. Grease or wax preferred to help prevent corrosion and even out the feel you get in pressure adjustment. Lubricant on other surfaces is to be avoided.
Kerosene is a light oil as I discovered after soaking the disk brake pads of my bicycle to clean them. Luckily it evaporates relatively quickly so if using it be aware it could affect your initial grab for a day or so.
I also sometimes add a home made plastic friction washer that I make using a set of hollow punches and a rotary leather hole punch. The hollow punches are also great for making fretboard markers out of everything from binding offcuts to bread tags. I use them in my drill rather than hammer them. Yes I turn the drill on, not the drill press though that works too.

Thank you Chaps for your thoughts and experiences, I hope that they assist the OP too.

For those following Chris’s comments please be aware that there is a very similar looking cup and cone version, his idea is for the flat faced version shown. Having searched for them I found something similar to ‘Chris’s’ on Amazon for £1.31.

Sven said:

Don’t do what a bloke here in Stockholm did. He put a set of tuners off of an old Gibson soprano in a cup of something to de-grease them. Might have been alcohol, might have been acetone. The knobs melted and vanished without a trace, leaving the solution amber colored.

The metal parts got really clean.

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None of the blokes I know in Stockholm would have used alcohol for this - in Sweden, alcohol is for internal use only

I have on occasion drenched tuners in beer.

Sven said:

I have on occasion drenched tuners in beer.

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But that's when you're being a badass metal bass player. IIRC correctly, with uke in hand you never spill a drop.