Waverly Friction tuning pegs - REVIEW

I don't have any problems even with the old fashioned wooden friction pegs. Violinists use them and they manage to tune their instruments without problem. In fact in a pro orchestra they have to be extremely in tune with all the other players. Physically it's much harder to tune a violin than a Uke, you kind of have to hold the instrument up, bow it with one hand whilst turning the peg with the other hand.
The easiest way is to tune harmonically. Once you can hear what is 'right' when both strings sound it becomes very easy to tune with friction pegs. In fact it was through using friction pegs that I trained my ear. You would think that geared pegs would do the same but for some reason using friction pegs forced me to actually start listening to two strings sounding together.
 
Most violinists that i know use those little tuners on the bridge for fine tuning. I'm hoping for a set of GOTOH planetary runners for my birthday later this month to put my Martin 2K. I recently had a chance to play with some Magic Fluke uses with Peghed planetary tuners and liked the ease of tuning with them. I'll add a thread about the UPTs once they arrive.
 
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Waverly is like buying a Mercedes, Rolls, or Bentley. ..if you can afford them, why not :)
There's always good functional tuners with less bling, that works fine...
 
The Waverley tuners actually have very little bling. I believe that their primary purpose is to be a good quality replacement for vintage tuners from the 1920s or for those of us who get hung up on the details of proportions. The Gotoh and Grover friction tuners are smoother, but definitely not vintage with the banjo size buttons and pan head Philips screws. Gotoh tuners are high quality, but I like the cream colored buttons of the Grovers better. Ideally, it would be nice to be able to purchase proper buttons with slotted screws and use the Gotoh tuners on vintage style ukuleles. The Waverleys are very good and elegant reproductions of the old 1920s Grovers, but I do not care for their function. I have not heard of the tapered friction surface causing any splits in the head, but it does happen to violin family instruments, (different taper, thickness and force). Maybe I worry too much, but my Waverly tuners are being replaced with Gotoh friction tuners with modified ivoroid buttons and custom slotted screws. You can see one of my Laughlins after the modification on the bottom of page 2.
 
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