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Topic: What should I do about this broken tuner |
Thomas Mullins
From:
Colorado, USA
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Posted 4 Dec 2020 2:47 pm |
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Its in decently good shape but one of the machine heads is broken clean off. Should I replace with the Kluson 4 in a line or is there a better solution? I suppose I could machine a custom piece but it would probably cost as much as the new klusons.
Last edited by Thomas Mullins on 27 Mar 2021 7:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Howard Parker
From:
Maryland
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Posted 4 Dec 2020 2:51 pm
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What's wrong with it beyond the missing button? If the button is the only issue just replace it.
h |
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Thomas Mullins
From:
Colorado, USA
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Posted 4 Dec 2020 4:31 pm button replacement
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I was unaware that you could replace the buttons on these. They aren't the screw on type. I thought they were forged from a single piece.
Are these soldered together or epoxied or what?
I haven't actually got this in hand yet. |
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Ron Shalita
From:
California, USA
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Posted 4 Dec 2020 4:55 pm
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Super glue ?
_________________
Been playing all of my life, Lead Guitar, and Pedal Steel, sing Lead and Harmony.. play other Instruments also but I hate to admit to it.. |
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Thomas Mullins
From:
Colorado, USA
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Posted 4 Dec 2020 5:26 pm
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| you guys think I could just pop one off of a kluson tuner head? I haven't found the metal keys sold seperately. |
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Howard Parker
From:
Maryland
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Posted 4 Dec 2020 5:30 pm
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They might well be soldered in. Like Fender.
Have you checked Stewart MacDonald for replacements?
Stewmac |
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Thomas Mullins
From:
Colorado, USA
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Posted 4 Dec 2020 5:46 pm
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| yeah, I haven't seen metal replacements on there. I worked for a guitar shop year ago and we probably had a hundred loose tuners laying around that would work for this purpose. |
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Howard Parker
From:
Maryland
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Posted 4 Dec 2020 5:59 pm
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So I see.
Well,
Depending on your priorities, the easy way would be to find something that fits the shaft, glue it and move on.
This assumes of course that the tuner itself actually works.
h |
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Thomas Mullins
From:
Colorado, USA
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Posted 5 Dec 2020 11:53 am
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| I'll figure it out when it gets into my hands. I was hoping somebody would point me to some obscure lapsteel shop that had a bunch of NOS tuners for sale, haha. I'll machine a new one if need be. |
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Jon Jaffe
From:
Austin, Texas
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Posted 5 Dec 2020 3:21 pm
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| Do use superglue. Use epoxy or golf club epoxy. It stands up to rotation or torque much better. |
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Ron Pruter
From:
Arizona, USA
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Posted 5 Dec 2020 6:32 pm
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Take that tuner or the whole strip off the guitar.Carefully heat the post red hot and flatten it a bit with a hammer. Heat it up again and and melt a plastic knob right down on the shaft. Let it cool.
There is no chance any glue is going to hold it if the tuner turns real hard. If the shaft is bent, straighten it with a hammer. Good luck. RP
_________________
Emmons SKH Le Grande, '73 Fender P/J bass, Tick tack bass, Regal high strung, USA Nashville 112. |
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Joel Jackson
From:
Detroit
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Posted 6 Dec 2020 6:55 am
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| Ron Pruter wrote: |
Take that tuner or the whole strip off the guitar.Carefully heat the post red hot and flatten it a bit with a hammer. Heat it up again and and melt a plastic knob right down on the shaft. Let it cool.
There is no chance any glue is going to hold it if the tuner turns real hard. If the shaft is bent, straighten it with a hammer. Good luck. RP |
This is how it's done. |
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Thomas Mullins
From:
Colorado, USA
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Posted 6 Dec 2020 11:15 am
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| Ron Pruter wrote: |
Take that tuner or the whole strip off the guitar.Carefully heat the post red hot and flatten it a bit with a hammer. Heat it up again and and melt a plastic knob right down on the shaft. Let it cool.
There is no chance any glue is going to hold it if the tuner turns real hard. If the shaft is bent, straighten it with a hammer. Good luck. RP |
Thanks for the advice but the buttons are not plastic. They are metal buttons. The original shaft already has flattened bits on either side of it. The shaft itself looks fine really.
I assume the original head is slotted to marry the shaft perfectly thus the solder, epoxy or glue would only serve the purpose of keeping it from falling off. All the twisting torque would be supported by the keyways on either side of the shaft.
If I can't find the exact button I will machine one myself. Although if anybody has an entire tree of these I would love to buy them. |
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Thomas Mullins
From:
Colorado, USA
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Posted 6 Dec 2020 11:19 am
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here is a better pic of the problem
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Larry Jamieson
From:
Walton, NY USA
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Posted 8 Dec 2020 5:55 am
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| If you know any person, shop or store with a 30 year parts box, find a single tuner that is as close a match as possible. Take the four tuner plank off your guitar, cut off the damaged tuner and replace it with the single. You can even cut one off an old three plank if you have to. Not an exact match but it gets you back in business easily with little cost. |
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Thomas Mullins
From:
Colorado, USA
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Posted 25 Dec 2020 12:44 pm the solution
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Well, just for fun I decided to make a new tuner button by putting a glob of JB Weld around the broken post and then filling it down to shape. It looks almost perfect and if I went to the trouble of painting it with conductive paint and nickle plating it would look perfect.
I tuned it up with a low E acoustic guitar string and went an octave above normal and it was rock solid. I'm sure I could have broke the string before the button would have broke.
My machinist friend said it would be $300 to make the part so I decided against that path.
I ordered some Grover retro tuners because after taking the originals off I can say that they were legitimately not good tuners. Its not entirely the fault of the tuner manufacturer though. When national drilled the holes for the tuners they didn't do a very good job they are all spaced slightly differently from each other. To make the tuners fit the had to bash them into the holes and they even needed to do some filing on the tuner plate cover. I assume this is a common problem and probably why these are always so difficult to turn.
The new tuners required a tapered hole. Thankfully Stewmac has a custom bit that did this. The original tuners can still be installed after this modification but now its much more tunable. Which is a good thing considering the crazy headstock configuration already makes it difficult. The only down side is that the tuner covers sits about .5mm higher than factory. They still screw into place just fine though and its basically invisible. If it mattered that much to somebody they could sand the back of the tuner housing and make them a perfect fit. I plan on only using one of each screw hole in the back to avoid unnecessary holes and so I don't have to fill many of the original holes. I think this will be fine considering many tuners only have one hole anyways.
I just ordered 2 more sets of guitar tuners. I'll post pics when its all done.
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Gene Tani
From:
Pac NW
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Posted 25 Dec 2020 10:16 pm
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If you haven;'t given up on a replacement button You could try asking vintage shops like Dusty strings, Emerald City, Mike/Mike guitar bar (the first 3 local to me, Seattle), Gryphon, Elderly, Carter, Gruhn's, Retrofret, Bob Smakula.
https://www.smakula.com/VGP.html
_________________
- keyless Sonny Jenkins laps stay in tune forever!; Carter PSG
- The secret sauce: polyester sweatpants to buff your picks, cheapo Presonus channel strip for preamp/EQ/compress/limiter, Diet Mountain Dew |
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D Schubert
From:
Columbia, MO, USA
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Posted 26 Dec 2020 7:50 am
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| One of our local bluesmen fixed his by soldering a penny onto the shaft. He says, poor people have poor ways. |
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Jim Palenscar
From:
Oceanside, Calif, USA
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Posted 26 Dec 2020 8:30 am
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| I don't believe that those tuner knobs are metal- as I've tried to heat one and it just melted like plastic. |
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Thomas Mullins
From:
Colorado, USA
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Posted 26 Dec 2020 4:50 pm
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Maybe mine where replaced before I got them but these are definitely metal. Used multimeter to test resistance to be sure. I'm temped to buy a lead test kit because they look like lead on the inside. Also lead melts at a very low temp. Its semi soft at room temp. my hakko soldering station goes way above lead melting point, I was able to deform the metal with it but its such a big piece even if it were lead my station wouldn't be able to keep it above melting point. Still the fact it deformed like that means it is either zinc or lead.
Given the tuner peg holes aren't perfectly centered and the tuners aren't label klusons they may well have been replaced but if they were replaced they used all the original screw holes and got machines that were perfectly identical to other examples I've seen.
Thanks for all the tips guys but the new grovers work so good I kinda just want to make this a real playable instrument now and I'm not too concerned with it being 100% factory. Next problem is solving for low output volume. I tested and repaired the switches and pots but the pickups need remagging. I've done this on guitar but have no idea on these weird pickups.
| Jim Palenscar wrote: |
| I don't believe that those tuner knobs are metal- as I've tried to heat one and it just melted like plastic. |
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Thomas Mullins
From:
Colorado, USA
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Posted 27 Mar 2021 7:45 pm Here she is all done
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A note about the hand rest:
One of the major problems with this lap steel was that the hand rest was warped. The previous owner had put paper shims and only partially screwed it down. The cause of this was that the wood did not shrink or expand but the laminate coating on top of it did. To correct this I steamed the piece with a home made steam chamber made from a clothes steamer and aluminum foil. The eventual result was that the laminate separated from the wood and left a 1-2mm gap which I then filled with epoxy resin and painted black. Its back to its original shape now.
Here it is repaired. Notice the red lines are now parallel. The area circled in green is the area filled with epoxy. You can actually see it when the flash is on but its not visible with the naked eye.
Here are the new tuners with the covers on
Precovers
From the front
Strung up
New custom made cable and a/b selector
The internal electronics were heavily corroded, they were all cleaned. After cleaning by some miracle it became fully functional at a reasonable volume. This project is officially done unless I can find someone to repair the damage to this guitar case or make a customer reproduction for me. |
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