Lunch Break Wrenching - UPT tuners on Mainland soprano

OldePhart

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I just put the other set of UPTs I had on hand on my Mainland mahogany soprano (I had a thread a week or two ago where I put the first set on my KoAloha longneck soprano).

Having done it once and since I was reusing strings it only took about twenty minutes this time. I've mentioned before that if you like shiny you will not want to get the "chrome" ones because most of the exposed hardware is not plated. I've attached front and back views after installing one of the tuners so you can clearly see the difference between the UPT and the stock Mainland friction tuners (both of which are very good tuners, BTW).

I did discover one other thing about the UPTs that bares mentioning - the holes are slightly smaller than on many stock tuners. I use very heavy gage fluorocarbon strings (same gages as a Worth CH set) and I was barely able to get the E string through the hole twice using hemostats and there was no way the C string was going to go through twice (I always run my strings through then wrap 1/2 turn "backwards" and through the hole again so they don't slip coming up to pitch). I'll drill the holes on those two out slightly at the next string change. Note that this probably won't be a problem if you are using standard gage soprano or concert strings.

Here are the pics with the first tuner installed - I apologize for the quality - I didn't feel like fetching the DSLR out of the closet so they're crappy cell-phone pics.

UPT on Mainland back.jpgUPT on Mainland front.jpg

John
 
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