Dumb question..

I've asked a similar question before, but I'm still confused...

How do friction pegs work? As the screw increases tension, friction is created between the peg and the back of the headstock.. correct?

If that's the case, don't they cause damage to the wood as you tune, therefore rubbing them against the headstock?

P.S. I posted earlier but I think it was the wrong section, sorry for the double-post!

Not a dumb question at all. It increases the tension on both the top and bottom of the headstock because a tuner has a washer on either side of the headstock. Because of the washer, it distributes the pressure, which isn't all that much over a wider surface area which doesn't cause damage.

The overall amount of tension is pretty low and usually when you tighten you should just do a quarter turn at a time.

There are no dumb honest questions!!

Ahh, so it does create friction against the wood! That explains why my ukulele had very small amounts "saw dust" near the tuners after a couple months of using it. Perhaps I had the screws too tight also, I ended up switching them out for open-geared tuners, but now as UAS is calling and I'm picking up a new soprano, I'm looking at some models that come with friction tuners installed. Thanks for the info!

I read that some friction pegs, like the Grover Champions, use two bushings and don't rely on the headstock to create friction. Do you know if that's true? I know that they're much better quality than mine were at least lol.