iUke tuners

Hi folks

I have an iUke that gets very little play time. It's a really nice little instrument that isn't too difficult to play considering its size, but I have a real problem with the tuners.
They are awful friction tuners. Now, I don't have a problem with friction tuners, I have them on my Kala soprano and I love them, but the ones on the iUke are terrible.
They're the cheapest, nastiest tuners with cardboard washers and probably 3 parts or so.
Can anybody recommend any replacement friction tuners that would be small enough to fit on one of these bad boys?
Thank you in advance.

The Pashmeister said:

Hi folks

I have an iUke that gets very little play time. It's a really nice little instrument that isn't too difficult to play considering its size, but I have a real problem with the tuners.
They are awful friction tuners. Now, I don't have a problem with friction tuners, I have them on my Kala soprano and I love them, but the ones on the iUke are terrible.
They're the cheapest, nastiest tuners with cardboard washers and probably 3 parts or so.
Can anybody recommend any replacement friction tuners that would be small enough to fit on one of these bad boys?
Thank you in advance.

Click to expand...

I hate to say this, but expensive friction tuners work better, but are you willing to pay more for the tuners than you did for your uke? Someone posted recently about a pair of tuners for about $60. I think they were Waverly. There was also a post about some small tuners - or small buttons.

I don't like friction tuners, so I tend to replace them with geared of some kind

https://www.ukulelemag.com/stories/gear-guru-quality-ukulele-tuners
https://www.gotaukulele.com/2012/03/dont-be-afraid-of-friction-tuners.html
https://www.stewmac.com/parts-and-h...g-machines/waverly-ukulele-friction-pegs.html
https://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?43724-Best-aftermarket-friction-tuners

I'd have to stick with friction tuners. There isn't enough room for geared tuners and they would look odd on such a small uke. I take your point about price. It only cost me £30 so that kind of expense would be foolish.

The Pashmeister said:

Hi folks

I have an iUke that gets very little play time. It's a really nice little instrument that isn't too difficult to play considering its size, but I have a real problem with the tuners.
They are awful friction tuners. Now, I don't have a problem with friction tuners, I have them on my Kala soprano and I love them, but the ones on the iUke are terrible.
They're the cheapest, nastiest tuners with cardboard washers and probably 3 parts or so.
Can anybody recommend any replacement friction tuners that would be small enough to fit on one of these bad boys?
Thank you in advance.

Click to expand...

I’m not certain of the tensions and torsions involved on the iUke but I was able to make cheap friction tuners work very well on a Soprano. I smoothed the friction surfaces, to ensure that they were level and burr free, and used fibre washers (which are cheap and readily available off of eBay).

IIRC there was a thread about getting friction tuners to work better, sadly I can’t find it again. In that thread ProfChris added some very useful points about getting very basic tuners to work adequately.

I can’t comment on which replacement tuners to buy but for something well regarded you’ll be looking at spending say £20 and maybe more. That seems a lot to pay on a £30 Uke so looking closely at what you have first and low cost no-names off of eBay might be wise. I like flat faced friction surfaces that I can put (friction material) washers in between.

Edit. Found the thread which might help with improvement: https://forum.ukuleleunderground.co...tion-and-maintenance&highlight=Friction+tuner