I got a Bruko no. 6 in October and haven't had much time to play it. Tonight I took it out and tried to tune it, but as soon as I would get a string tuned, the tuning peg just seemed to slide and loosen the string two or three notes lower than it should have been.
I know that the uke wasn't like this when I got it. Any suggestions on what I can do to fix it? The original strings are on it. Would it make a difference to change the strings or is the problem with the uke itself?
Thanks for any advice!
Maria
You can tighten the little screw on the back of the tuning peg with a small phillips head screwdriver. Don't be afraid of this, as this is totally normal for a uke with friction tuners, as they need adjustment from time to time.
This is especially prevalent in the winter time when you are heating your house, because the heating reduces the ambient humidity, and that causes the wood to shrink slightly due to lack of moisture in the wood.
What probably happened is that the wood in the headstock shrunk a little (due to the above mentioned environmental change), and thus the tension of the screw in the tuner is no longer adequate at it's current setting in order to grip the wood and hold the peg from turning.
Try a 1/4 turn at a time of the screw head, see if it holds, and then try another 1/4 turn until it no longer slips. Much tighter than that and it will become difficult to turn the peg smoothly. It is better to make small incremental changes to the screw tension as opposed to cranking it down crazy tight.
If your ukulele instead has geared tuners (like a guitar) then it is probably a different issue. Most Bruko #6's that I've seen have friction tuners though.
As far as the strings go, that is possibly a different issue, especially if the uke has sat unplayed since new, or since newer strings were installed. I will kindly refer you to my recent post on this very topic here:
http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com...in-a-new-set-of-strings&p=1651184#post1651184
Please report back and indicate if either of the above suggestions has worked for you, and if not, we can go from there.