OldePhart
Well-known member
In spite of putting in about 9 hours on the paying job today I managed to get some stuff done on my ukes, too.
First, I put the UPT tuners that just came in from HMS on my KoAloha longneck. I actually did that this morning before I logged in for my employer, so the tuning should be fairly stable now.
I love the tuners so far. I didn't feel like dragging out my precision reloading scale and finding batteries for it but the postal scale indicated that two of the original KoAloha tuners weighed right at one ounce together...and two of the UPT tuners weighed right at one ounce together! Since my main beef against geared tuners on sopranos (other than the ungainly "ears") is weight (or rather, how that weight affects balance), I'm pretty pleased with these.
I also like low (or high, depending on your viewpoint) ratio - 4:1. Three times better than 12:1 and four times better than 16:1 in my opinion. At ukulele tensions you just really don't need any more than 4:1 and that means you don't have to turn the tuner twenty-eleven times to bring new strings up to pitch.
So, the UPTs are a win-win. One word of warning, though. If you are a bling person you will probably want to order the gold or "black chrome" because the tuners described as "chrome" really aren't. Some of the interior parts appear to be chrome, but most of what is visible, isn't plated. You can see from the attached pictures that it looks more like ordinary unplated hardware. (I didn't take a picture of the front, but the washer and nut are unplated, too.)
This isn't a problem for me, as long as the parts don't corrode over time, but if you're one of those folks who has to have shiny then you will want to order the gold or black.
On the KoAloha I had to ream the holes out larger. Make sure you ream from the back (because the front is fine, it is an interior barrel bolt that will fit fine in the existing hole). Also notice the little sharp "pin" sticking out of the tuner. This digs into the wood to keep the body of the tuner from turning. I point it out mostly because if you just keep reaming until the back part of the tuner fits flush you will have way over-enlarged the hole! Do make sure that you get it large enough that the tuner drops down easily until the pin contacts wood, though. Better to err on the side of slightly oversize because if you tighten a tuner down in an undersize, tapered (from the reamer) hole you have a very good chance of cracking the headstock!
This installation was very easy and took only about 1/2 hour even for old pokey me.
John
First, I put the UPT tuners that just came in from HMS on my KoAloha longneck. I actually did that this morning before I logged in for my employer, so the tuning should be fairly stable now.
I love the tuners so far. I didn't feel like dragging out my precision reloading scale and finding batteries for it but the postal scale indicated that two of the original KoAloha tuners weighed right at one ounce together...and two of the UPT tuners weighed right at one ounce together! Since my main beef against geared tuners on sopranos (other than the ungainly "ears") is weight (or rather, how that weight affects balance), I'm pretty pleased with these.
I also like low (or high, depending on your viewpoint) ratio - 4:1. Three times better than 12:1 and four times better than 16:1 in my opinion. At ukulele tensions you just really don't need any more than 4:1 and that means you don't have to turn the tuner twenty-eleven times to bring new strings up to pitch.
So, the UPTs are a win-win. One word of warning, though. If you are a bling person you will probably want to order the gold or "black chrome" because the tuners described as "chrome" really aren't. Some of the interior parts appear to be chrome, but most of what is visible, isn't plated. You can see from the attached pictures that it looks more like ordinary unplated hardware. (I didn't take a picture of the front, but the washer and nut are unplated, too.)
This isn't a problem for me, as long as the parts don't corrode over time, but if you're one of those folks who has to have shiny then you will want to order the gold or black.
On the KoAloha I had to ream the holes out larger. Make sure you ream from the back (because the front is fine, it is an interior barrel bolt that will fit fine in the existing hole). Also notice the little sharp "pin" sticking out of the tuner. This digs into the wood to keep the body of the tuner from turning. I point it out mostly because if you just keep reaming until the back part of the tuner fits flush you will have way over-enlarged the hole! Do make sure that you get it large enough that the tuner drops down easily until the pin contacts wood, though. Better to err on the side of slightly oversize because if you tighten a tuner down in an undersize, tapered (from the reamer) hole you have a very good chance of cracking the headstock!
This installation was very easy and took only about 1/2 hour even for old pokey me.
John