KC8AFW
Well-known member
I acquired a vintage ukulele recently (you can read about it in this thread). It has friction tuners with wooden buttons (see picture below). The wood-to-wood mating surface creates binding, and the small buttons don't provide for much leverage. Once you get the pegs tight enough to hold tune...it is a real bear to turn them (once it breaks free, it moves too far). This makes tuning extremely difficult.
Modern tuners have a metal surface that contacts the headstock and are not as finicky to adjust. I was wondering if putting a washer of some kind between the button and headstock would help make tuning easier. The issue I see with this is that the button/headstock mating surface is slightly rounded (kind of like a "ball and socket"). I wonder if maybe a thin metal or nylon washer might do the trick.
I could just replace the tuners with modern ones...but I really liked the fact that it is all original. I was hoping that someone might have a good suggestion on how I could get the original tuners to work more smoothly.
:anyone:
Modern tuners have a metal surface that contacts the headstock and are not as finicky to adjust. I was wondering if putting a washer of some kind between the button and headstock would help make tuning easier. The issue I see with this is that the button/headstock mating surface is slightly rounded (kind of like a "ball and socket"). I wonder if maybe a thin metal or nylon washer might do the trick.
I could just replace the tuners with modern ones...but I really liked the fact that it is all original. I was hoping that someone might have a good suggestion on how I could get the original tuners to work more smoothly.
:anyone: