Official Luthiers Forum!

Very cool.

Are the little slots in the cover for lubing the gears? Maybe that's why it held up. Does anyone EVER lubricate open back tuners?

Are each one of the tuner shafts set at a different angle? I had to figure out how to place mine using a standard 90 degree tuner. I like the shape of the knobs.

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Why be normal?

Ken I didn't measure the angle but they appear to all be the same. The little openings are right over the worm wheel so it does appear as though that is the intent. The gears look as though they were packed with grease at some point. The problem was the high was slipping. once you got it tuned almost right up to e you could see the knob turn back on it's own. Taking it apart and looking at it I could see nothing wrong then on closer inspection the high e was not crimped as tight as the others. So it appears as though the two plates need to be held together so that the worm wheel doesn't rock back and forth allowing one of the gear tooths (is that a word) to slip. Once the backing plate is screwed down it holds it all together. I've had a few of these old Stauffer like guitars in over the last couple years but the tuners were not like these ones and I cannot find much info online so they could have been retro fitted at some point but at the same time they fit so well inside I'd guess they are original.

Ken, yes repairmen lubricate open back tuners.

Yep

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

The question is then, what's so great about closed ones then?

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Why be normal?

I worry about grease collecting dust and causing more abrasion than it helps. Graphite might be good though.

Mostly just visual preference, I think. Classical tuners are almost all open gear, so obviously there's no major functional advantage.

The tuners that inspired to extend the shafts on a modern geared tuner set are very similar to what jfmckenna is showing. The guitar they are on is an early 1800's "figure 8" body. They are assembled with tiny cotter pins rather than screws.

I think the advantage of closed back tuners is that the grease is captive in the tuner and less messy than lubing open backed tuners. With the greater tension of steel strings I think the grease and improved bearing surface helps them work more smoothly and last longer. The down side is they are heavier

Yes I lubricate all open backs that I encounter and that's a lot of them annually. Pipette with 3 in 1 oil in it, guitar face down, hit the side of the journals closest to me and the worm gear and then I go to the other side and hit the journals closest to me again. Slip my drill with my string winder on each one, spin them up, grab paper towel, wipe them down and then I move on. This is after tightening all tuner screws.

For the past few years I have been using a tiny dollop of grease on a toothpick to lube the tuners. I thought the grease might last a little longer than oil.

I use lithium (white) grease on tuners. I also use it on router bearings as it is a moderately high temperature grease.

I like Finish Line Dry Bike Lube. It's a fast-evaporating liquid that leaves behind a dry film of Teflon. Pretty much invisible and doesn't pick up dust.

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

I use 3 in 1 also. I, like Dennis mentioned, have noticed that grease does seem to attract dust. But like all things in luthiery there many ways to get things done.

I think I finally found out what is happening with the high-e slipping on this, a hairline crack in the headstock coming right from the location of the tuner. These tuners depend on compression from the back plate it seems and the hairline crack opens just enough under stress to allow it to slip... Or that's what I'm thinking anyway.

Just for the sake of argument; I think grease is more appropriate for tuners for the following explanation of lubricants. Oil is good for high speed and close fitting components. However, it has to be reapplied frequently because it doesn't have the ability to stay in place very long. Grease is good for sloppy fitting, slower moving, but high pressure components due to its longevity. Auto components that have bearing surfaces follow this pattern of grease versus oil. Also, we all know that closed back tuners are packed with grease; not oil.

The reason grease may attract dust is exactly due to it being present for many years. Oil would be just as capable of attracting grease but it doesn't because after a year or two it has basically disappeared.

We use grease on sealed tuners as the manufactures do and did but 3 and 1 oil works great for open backs. It is not our intent to have any excess lubrication (of any kind) exposed to the air on the outside of the tuners. Stuff, dirt will stick to it. So with 3 and 1 oil we can get it to penetrate where metal is on metal and then wipe much of the excess off. Spinning them with a drill really spreads it out nicely and quickly too helping it get into the far reaches.

Having to lube tuners again in the future and it's not frequently in my experience it lasts much longer than that is not necessarily a bad thing. Strings need to be changed so having to lube tuners, open backs every say several years is not a bad thing.

Guitars require maintenance, seasonal adjustments, cleaning, conditioning the wood to avoid cracking making a quick lube of the tuners just part of the routine. I do it hundreds of times annually on my client's instruments.

Back to grease we do use it again on sealed tuners. Klusons are a good example used by Gibson forever they have a small hole in the back of the casing. That hole is intended to be where you stick your syringe and inject grease and that's how we do it.

My routine when I service an instrument is to start at the headstock and move into the body. So tuners come first for me and this includes snugging the nut on the face of the headstock, snugging any screw on the back of the headstock, trying and adjusting tension on all the tuner buttons and then turning the instrument face down in my leg vice to lube tuners if they are capable of being lubed.

We have many, many gigging musicians as regulars and they often play outside in dusty, dirty spaces not to mention some of the dive bars... so I agree you really don't want any grease that is exposed in these environments. If contamination is attracted and then sticks to the mechanisms that can be as harmful as not lubricating at all.

Back on topic... Starting a cherry burst refinish.

That must be one heavy guitar to require a chain that big to hang it from! Dave

Hahahahha it was the only one I could find. BTW it's actually a pretty light one as far as Pauls go.

BWB Purfling pre-laminated to binding, then bent on Fox bender.
Pics are out of order, don’t know how to fix that….:
There is one lonely BWB on the bottom of the stack for good measure

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

Absolutely. I try to bend the bindings and purflings at the same time I bend the sides. That way you get a good fit. Dave

Mostly finished the "Selmer model" Petite Bouche, gypsy jazz type guitar. Got a vacuum pump to do "double" sides, made a hinged table and special bending iron to bend "pilage" in top. the sides and part of the back are spalted Sycamore, the neck is Walnut with rosewood fretboard and carved the bridge from Ebony. I don't play the Gypsy Jazz style and I doubt if anyone around here does but it was fun to build anyway and quite a challenge to boot.

[quote="surveyor"]Mostly finished the "Selmer model" Petite Bouche, gypsy jazz type guitar. …

Very nicely done!

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

The last few days I've watched videos of a French maker. He apparently does that model often, and has people playing them. 4 or 5 different styles of playing here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuaRy5tQEPw&t=117s


It does seem to have some sort of arch on the top. Is that what you mean by "pilage"?

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Why be normal?

Nice Mike. Funny too. I just last night pulled my Petite Bouche off the wall and banged on a few of those weird jazz chords last night for the first time in a long time. When I built mine I had a hell of a time figuring out how to do the pliage. Finally I decided to join the top with fish glue because of its high melting point and then just bent the top over a square hot pipe.

I don't normally build ukes (come to think of it, I don't do anything normally) but when a family member asks for one, what's a builder to do?

I made this little concert uke for my wife. I cut the fretboard inlays around 1977 and just found them buried in an old box. Koa body, cedar neck, ebony FB, 15" scale, Grover tuners, French polished shellac.

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com