# Instruments and Equipment > Builders and Repair >  Waverly tuners 10X better?

## StuartGold

I was looking around for tuners and noticed to my shock that Waverly tuners seem to be ten times as expensive as other brands. Is this a mistake? If it a matter of "you get what you pay for"? If so are they 10X better? What are the most common tuners used by builders?

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## Folkmusician.com

Not a mistake and not 10X better either.... Still, if you have 10k+ mandolin, I think it is reasonable to put on a set of Waverly's. These are hand made in the USA and I would say they are the benchmark.

I believe Schaller , Gotoh and Grover are the most common.

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Dobe, 

red7flag

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## Ed Goist

Both of my custom builds have the 18:1 Grovers on them (_The Raven_ has the F-style, while _Autumn_ has the A-style).
I would say these tuners are remarkably good. Hard to imagine anything being better, let alone 10X better. 
YMMV.

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## Marty Jacobson

They might very well be 10 times better. That doesn't mean you will notice any difference in everyday use.
Henry Maudslay, the "father of modern machine tools", was once asked to make a machine screw "in the best manner possible". The resulting product was a cost several orders of magnitude over the budgeted cost of the part, and a year in the making. 
So you just have to decide if you want "really good" or "the very best". 

Either way, drill your peghead holes "in the best manner possible".

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Bernie Daniel, 

Paul Statman

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## shortymack

As a musician you have got to be familiar with the law of diminishing returns. Price does  not have a direct correlation to performance.

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## herbsandspices

> These are hand made in the USA and I would say they are the benchmark.


Just quoting the truth!

They're buttery smooth, hold their tension without any problem, and look the part to boot.  :Mandosmiley:

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## sunburst

> ...you just have to decide if you want "really good" or "the very best".


And if you decide on "the very best', get a set from Nicolo Alessi for perhaps a little less than Waverlys. (My opinion) 
...and as Martin says, for the tuners to work to their beat potential, accurately drilled holes are essential.

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Paul Statman

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## goose 2

I strongly believe they are the best tuners out there.  I have played them for 10 years on two different stellar mandolins.  I did not put them on my beater but for my "lifetime mate" which I have had for 6 or 7 years now, I would not have anything else. When I play other mandolins that have other tuners I appreciate the Waverlys on mine all the more.  I probably would not put them on an instrument that I did not intend to play for many years as I think that when you sell/trade you probably will not get a premium price for your mandolin just because it has Waverlys.  I throughly enjoy mine and to me they are 10x worth it.

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## almeriastrings

They are very nice tuners... as you would expect. One obvious difference between much cheaper types (mechanical function aside) is that they are very well plated. I have a gold set one guitar that have been there 13 years now.... not a sign of the plating wearing through. On another guitar, I have the vastly, vastly cheaper Grover "version". They have been on there less than 5 years, and the gold has almost gone from the knobs. However, in terms of how they tune, both sets are very good. No complaints with either on that score. On mandolins, I have Schaller's and Gotoh's. Some of those have been in regular use for 10+ years with no problems at all. Smooth. Accurate.  Like a lot of very expensive things, Waverly's and Alessi's are "nice to have", but just as a $7K watch is not 100X "better" than a Timex in any practical sense, only you can decide if that's how you want to spend your money! If you like "nice things" they may well be worth it to you.

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## pjlama

To me they are and that's all I care about.

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## doc holiday

Me, I'm with PJ.

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## Jim Hilburn

To me Wavs are 10x better looking. I don't ever look at my tuners when I play though.

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## doc holiday

If I'm buying a fine mandolin let's say between $5k & $20k, philosophically I have no problem paying between 2 & 10% of the instrument  for fine tuners installed by the builder.  Ditto for the case upgrade to Calton/Hoffee/Peg etc.

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## Pete Jenner

> If I'm buying a fine mandolin let's say between $5k & $20k, philosophically I have no problem paying between 2 & 10% of the instrument  for fine tuners installed by the builder.  Ditto for the case upgrade to Calton/Hoffee/Peg etc.


If you're buying a fine mandolin between $5k and $20k, ...can I have your old one?  :Wink:

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Tommcgtx

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## William Smith

Well I'm with ya all,,,I love each set I have on my horns,,,,they seem to hold pitch fairly decent, as if any mando would stay in perfect tune anyway!,,also they are just about purty lookin, the flowers and other details make em great,if you love your main toy why not spoil her!

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## HoGo

> These are hand made in the USA and I would say they are the benchmark.


I don't think there is any other handwork than assembly involved on waverlies. CNC from start to end to my eyes.
Alessi is completely different, the plates are handcut from sheet and shaped with files to any custom shape and the worm holding tabs are riveted by hand. String posts turned to custom lengths etc... Lots of mojo. And they DO cost less than waverlies even with several custom options which waverlies don't offer.

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Paul Statman

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## Mike Bunting

I'd love to try Alessi's but how do I get them?

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## fatt-dad

to the OP:  I'd say the answer is, "no."  But, folks may pay ten times more to get twice the value (or less).  The engineer in my thinks this is not a linear equation.

f-d

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## Ivyguitar

Well, I'd say the anser is, "yes."  First thing I do is take off the keys and replace with Waves.  Then the old ones go back on when its time to sell.

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## Max Girouard

> I'd love to try Alessi's but how do I get them?


Try contacting James Condino.  I know he had a couple of sets he was selling.

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Mike Bunting

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## bernabe

> And if you decide on "the very best', get a set from Nicolo Alessi for perhaps a little less than Waverlys. (My opinion)


The thing with Alessi tuners is the costs of ordering overseas. Nicolo only accepts payment wired directly to his account. The $ transfer fee [I think was around $40] S&H [$50], and a customs fee[I think was $20] puts a $365 set of tuners at around $475 +/-. This is his basic F Style set with ebony buttons so...its only upward from there. I know his price is about $50 more with pearl buttons IIRC.

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Paul Statman

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## bmac

if a tuner works as it should... there is no "better" tuner. There may be a prettier tuner though, and thats what costs the big bucks. another word for this is "life". Prettier things are almost always more expensive.

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## Paul Statman

They all have their shortcomings. I'm favoring Gotoh these days. They look more like the old Waverly than anything else that costs less than the 'premium' ones. They work smoothly, and weigh noticeably less. I have added delrin washers to a couple of sets, but even they were good to start with.

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## j. condino

> The thing with Alessi tuners is the costs of ordering overseas. Nicolo only accepts payment wired directly to his account. The $ transfer fee [I think was around $40] S&H [$50], and a customs fee[I think was $20] puts a $365 set of tuners at around $475 +/-. This is his basic F Style set with ebony buttons so...its only upward from there. I know his price is about $50 more with pearl buttons IIRC.


I've paid Nicolo via paypal for a couple of years now- pretty easy one click transaction. 

"The thing with Alessi tuners".... for me is that they blow the doors off every other mandolin tuning machine I've ever used or seen. The difference is real and instantly noticeable. They are the only mandolin machine I've used for about five years now. Waverly also makes a nice product. That does not mean that Alessi or the Waverly are the right choice for you. If the Waverly folks had better communication skills, I'd likely use them often, but my experience is that they can be pretty uptight and are not customer oriented in any manner. No way, no dice, don't care what you have to say, shutup hippee, no nada... I went so far last year as to visit Bozeman with several sets of Alessi in hand to show them the competition and discuss some new ideas, but they couldn't be bothered to let me visit or even return my phone calls; strange business model in a recession.

A lot of folks I know drive cars that cost the price of several Gilchrist mandolins but use $50 Chinese tuning machines; I drive a 25 year old truck but insist on Alessi tuning machines on all my mandolins. I've got a thing about high precision tuning machines, so I've got more money in those than my car; I'd sell it and ride my bike before I gave up the Alessi!

There was a time when I worked for one of the big instrument manufacturing companies. Every week we'd have these number crunching production meetings where the folks up top would not be able to understand why they were not selling more instruments. The bean counters would get all bent out of shape when I'd give them a hard time about putting $8 Chinese tuning machines on $8,000 instruments.... :Wink: 

j.
www.condino.com

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Mandolinshockandawe, 

red7flag

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## Paul Hostetter

> A lot of folks I know drive cars that cost the price of several Gilchrist mandolins but use $50 Chinese tuning machines;


I never heard of people putting tuning machines on fancy cars, but seriously, who do you think has tuning machines made in China? The only serious players in the Asian import world I know of are made in Japan and Korea.

As far as I can see, neither Alessi nor Waverly are interested in doing anything more than the narrow band of products they offer. No wonder you weren't welcomed in Bozeman. Both seem focused on the American high-end market, both are fine products. But the breadth of their offerings is narrow.

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Paul Statman

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## Brian Court

I have Waverly Tuners on a Gibson F5, a Robert's Presentation Octave Mandolin and a Santa Cruz TR - I sure wouldn't go back to NOT having them!!!!!  It's kind of like getting a 15Meg ADSL broadband speed - dial-up would work, but who is going to go with dial-up if you have the choice? -- I've dealt with the folks at Waverly's in Bozeman -- they are all hand made and Eric is Awesome. They sell all they make, that has to say something.

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## almeriastrings

In the case of Alessi, I get the impression that mandolin tuners are really a bit of a sideline. Most of his work is directed at the high end international classical guitar market. He makes tuners for José Ramirez here in Spain, among others.  He's a very fine player himself, incidentally. He will make tuners to just about any spec, and they are works of art. Beautiful to behold. He's a one-man shop, and definitely not in the mass production business. Waverly is mass produced product compared to Alessi. 

I'd quite like a set of his tuners one day, but meantime, I can easily get in perfect tune with my lowly Schaller's and Gotoh's.....

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## bernabe

> I've paid Nicolo via paypal for a couple of years now- pretty easy one click transaction. www.condino.com


James, Ive been meaning to contact you to see if you know a way to get around some of the additional expenses I incurred last time. I even asked him about Pay Pal. I just went through my past emails from him and he had specifically stated he wanted his money directly wired into his bank account and provided a bank name, address, bank account#, only. Im curious as to why he wouldnt take a PayPal payment from me... :Confused:

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## almeriastrings

In many places in Europe, Paypal is simply regarded as too expensive and in addition, can be liable to 'reversals'. It is not very popular in either Spain or Germany either. 

Direct bank-bank transfers are simply a normal way of doing business here. Within the Euro-zone it is not expensive at all. Obviously, costs do rise for transactions involving currency conversions, or banks outside the Euro zone.

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## Rob Sharer

For those who have never lived/banked in Europe:

Accounts in Europe are identified by a single code, the IBAN number, which contains way too many digits to remember easily but allows for easy inter-institution transfers.  I seem to recall there's also something called a SWIFT code involved, so you may need two numbers to transfer.  When I was living over there, you could transfer any reasonable sum to anywhere that IBAN numbers are used for about 75 Euro cents.  I can easily see why Europeans don't see what the big deal is with wiring money.

Banks in the U.S. have been predictably reluctant to adopt such a consumer-friendly system; after all, if I want to send money to a different bank _in my own town_, I get hit with the same $40 charge referenced above.  

Great work if you can get it!

Rob

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## Fretbear

> if a tuner works as it should... there is no "better" tuner. There may be a prettier tuner though, and that's what costs the big bucks.


Agreed; and "works as it should" means (in my opinion) that your mandolin's tuning is a stable (or more so) as anyone in your band or next to you on any stage. I have an over one decade-old set of the old Grover 308's ($45, no longer available) that I decided (for some reason unknown to me) to remove the eight concealed tombstone-shaped black nylon spacers from. They stay in tune so well (there are other factors as well, unrelated to the tuners) that if I was offered a set of Waverly or better yet Alessi's (Yes, please!) I would certainly not turn them down, but they wouldn't go onto my peghead unless something was to change. I have read Dude criticize the Waverly's and other experts the new Grover 309's. My only problem with tuning now is if for any reason we are not playing at pitch, as moving up or down "a hair" is as much work as it has always been, tuner-quality not withstanding. I am not suggesting anyone to do this, even if they were still available, I'm just reporting my findings, which is that money (or buying off the rack) does not (necessarily) equal more tuning stability.

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## Dan Margolis

I have Waverlys on my Ellis.  They are beautiful tuners, but they are not magic.  Being in tune is being in tune, no matter who makes the tuners.  Strings still slip (especially our friend the A).  If you stay in tune with the tuners you already have, I can't imagine changing over to Waverlys.

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Jim Nollman, 

stevedenver

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## Lord of the Badgers

my problem is I wanted the satin gold waverlys... but no can do if you're not stateside... aargh. presume that's the pearl...

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## Marty Jacobson

Lord of the Badgers, talk to Rubner in Markneukirchen. (NFI.) They can make you satin finish tuners with functionality to rival Waverly, make sure you ask for the Moldflon bearings. Cost is a bit less, too, but the wait is longer (6-8 weeks).

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## peter.coombe

+1 on Rubner.  These are very good tuners if you order them with Teflon bearings, and are not so expensive.  I don't think they are in the same ball park as Waverlies, but seem to be smoother and certainly are more consistent than the Schallers I usually use.  They can do satin finishes, polished finishes, nickel, brass, black nickel, various engraving options, and Ebony or Rosewood knobs.  They are custom made so there is a waiting period, and you pay in advance.  I have just received a batch of 8 sets that took around 6 weeks.  Main problem is they only take bank transfers as payment, and as has already been pointed out, outside of EU that is an expensive way to pay.  It costs me around $45 AUD in bank fees.

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## Denman John

I'm having an octave mandolin built and I will be putting Waverlys on it.  I've had a couple of guitars with Waverlys and they were fantastic.  They kept the instrument in tune and I never had to think about them ~ which is a good sign when playing.  When I do have to change strings or tune, they just feel right.  Pricy, but the good things usually are.

I've only heard great things about Alessi tuners but have never tried or seen them.  They are kind of mythical as they seem as rare as hen's teeth.  I would definitely give them a try if I could find a set.  If not, I will be more than happy with Waverlys

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## dorenac

I'm having a set of satin gold Waverlys installed on my F5.  Here are some observations. They are CNC machined first off.   Not stamped.  The quality, precision, and accuracy of the two types of gears is better than what I had before.  There is no slop in the rotation of the gears.  They are smooth operating.  Waverly uses wood screws, solid brass, slot head, tapered with shoulders.  Unlike plated, phillips head, straight tapered sheet metal threads on my old tuners.  The tension for each set of gears at each post is adjustable with very small spit head nuts.  The attention to detail, deburring, etc. is better than I've seen on other tuners.   The bushings are thicker walled.  The bushings also taper from top to bottom in cone-like fashion by approximately 0.010".  This means on the top face of the headstock the ID is 0.010"  smaller, offering more support for the post.  While at the bottom of the bushing the ID is greater, which allows for the post to move without binding.  The wall thickness of each bushing is thicker than that of the straight tapered versions.  Also the outside face of the bushings are vertically knurled, not smooth.    If you put Waverlys side by side with the tuning machines I've replaced you might understand why they are more costly.  Ten times more, that's for others to decide.  They also include an extra ivory knob in case one is damaged.  There are other manufacturing details but maybe this helps illustrate why the higher cost.  Consequently they just cost more to make. And, IMHO, they are just flat out better than the ones I took off.

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ides1056

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## Hendrik Ahrend

Lord of the Badgers, I happen to have a new very nice custom-made set of Alessi tuners, close to Loar specs. I'm close to the UK in North-Western Germany, so PM me, if you are interested.
Henry

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## fscotte

I bet they last 10x longer.

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## Tavy

> I bet they last 10x longer.


No disrespect but regular tuners will generally outlast the owner.  I don't doubt someone 200 years down the road will thank you for using Waverly's, but I'm pretty sure I won't be around to see it  :Wink:

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## pfox14

I think Waverlys are grossly over-priced. Yes, they are great tuners but not at those prices. Just my 2 cents

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Paul Statman

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## Bluetickhound

For folks that have Alessi's, what is a general figure for wait time? A few months? A year or more?

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## stevedenver

Got mine in two weeks,with snakewood buttons.
They are simply superb,and,IMHO,worth every penny. Cost,417 delivered with all fees.

I understand and usually opt for utility. I like,no love, my aged stew macs. But the alessis are not only superior in function, but so obviously the work of an artisan machinest.  I have waver lies on my Ellis. Nice indeed, but no comparison in every way.

The stew macs,IMHO, are possibly the best for the money.  I agree, you can tune with anything. I have. But,like anything upscale, you don't need it, but, it's oh so nice, once you try em.  Very dangerous stuff this upper echelon stuff.  Go in to try yamaha and come out with a Martin.....you know how this goes.

For value, that's so subjective. 400 is a lot, when for 100 or so, your 90 percent there. There are diminishing  returns for most high end stuff.  Long ago, I became willing to pay for beauty as well as function.


To me, the allessis are both functional,like perfect, super smooth and no drag,  like an enclosed guitar tuner in feel, but also,simply beautiful, like a campignola equipped bike. Only you might know the subtle beauty, but it's there.

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Paul Statman

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## Marc Berman

> For folks that have Alessi's, what is a general figure for wait time? A few months? A year or more?


Mine took about a month. They're great.

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## fscotte

> No disrespect but regular tuners will generally outlast the owner.  I don't doubt someone 200 years down the road will thank you for using Waverly's, but I'm pretty sure I won't be around to see it


The last two Grover tuners I've used had at least one gear that started getting loose after a few string changes.

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## j. condino

> The last two Grover tuners I've used had at least one gear that started getting loose after a few string changes.


A few years back, I installed about six sets of the Grover 18:1 open back guitar machines, the Waverly copies. Every set of them had sudden chronic failure and the gears literally self destructed from inferior low grade metal. I had to replace and warranty all of them out of my own pocket.

j.
www.condino.com

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## Paul Hostetter

Whoa! A cog coming loose is no big deal, you just tighten the screw. But cogs crumbling from metal fatigue? These guys?

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## j. condino

> Whoa! A cog coming loose is no big deal, you just tighten the screw. But cogs crumbling from metal fatigue? These guys?


Yup- the chrome model on the left! The big brass gear just seemed to crumble on all of them- sudden catastrophic failure in the middle of a gig. It would have been just mildly frustrating if I had not swapped out all of the buttons for ebony. It was obviously a bad batch of material, but I just don't want to gamble on it again. I replaced all of them with Waverly open backs with ebony buttons at my expense. Problem solved. It was a bit embarrassing, because I suggested those machines after a good initial impression. I'm actually a pretty big fan of the Waverly guitar machines-a nice machine for a reasonable price. If the mandolin machines were $150, we would not even be having this conversation.

j.
www.condino.com

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## sunburst

> ...If the mandolin machines were $150, we would not even be having this conversation.


Heck, I'd go as high as $200 and be happy with Waverlys!

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## Jim Hilburn

Never mind.

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Paul Hostetter, 

Pete Jenner

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## yankees1

Michael Heiden  has a set of Alessi tuners to be installed on a new Heiden he is making for me. Can the buttons be interchanged with different buttons if I should decide to switch buttons on down the road ? Any special tools ?

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## bryankimsey

There is one thing that I don't like about Waverly mandolin tuners and that is that the shaft isn't tapered toward the hole.  I like to string my tuners with 1 wrap over and a wrap under so that under tension, the top and bottom pull tight toward each other and "pinch" on the threaded thru string.  On Waverly tuners, the strings don't do this and they just sit wherever I put them.

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## Hendrik Ahrend

> There is one thing that I don't like about Waverly mandolin tuners and that is that the shaft isn't tapered toward the hole.  I like to string my tuners with 1 wrap over and a wrap under so that under tension, the top and bottom pull tight toward each other and "pinch" on the threaded thru string.  On Waverly tuners, the strings don't do this and they just sit wherever I put them.


Yep, that "flaw" might just be to make those modern tuners appear more like the Loar period Waverlies. While we're at it, why are all those modern string posts one inch long or even more? They look funny sticking out so far, and I've never had to wrap 10 inches length of string around them. The '20s originals were 23 mms long, just like the spacing.

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Paul Statman

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## Paul Hostetter

There are a number of Stew-Mac tuners now bearing the name Waverly. If you mean these, or any of the Korean ones, the shaft isn't that much longer:



Are you referring to the unobtainable Montana ones?

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## Cheryl Watson

I recently bought some Siminoff Loar-style machines with the real pearl buttons.  They cost more than the cheaper Gotohs, yet far less than Waverlys and I find them to be a good midrange tuner. They turn very smoothly and my mandolin stays in tune quite well.  YMMV.  So far, I like them far better than the Waverlys I once had on one of my mandolins.  I think the Alessi machines, from what I have read, might be the ultimate mandolin tuners. I DO prefer the Waverly guitar machines, however, over any other guitar machines I have tried.

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Charles E.

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## Hendrik Ahrend

> There are a number of Stew-Mac tuners now bearing the name Waverly. If you mean these, or any of the Korean ones, the shaft isn't that much longer:
> 
> 
> 
> Are you referring to the unobtainable Montana ones?


Never mind. Too bad that nobody ever comes up with a very close copy of Loar style tuners. Any modern version looks relatively chunky.

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## Paul Hostetter

The tuners that were on the signed Loars had the same stepped posts that the Stew-Mac tuners with the black buttons, above, have. Combing through the archives, I'm finding it hard to locate a good angled photo, so these images may have to do:





Basically, this:



The other tuners in my image above are earlier ones by Waverly, with the Handel buttons and the sexy string posts. But those weren't used on Loar Gibsons. They were used on pre-Loar F-4s and so on.

There were two types of plates on the Loars:





The real pearl buttons are a nice touch, but otherwise, these are pretty basic 8:1 machines with posts I wouldn't characterize as having a shaft that was tapered toward the string hole.

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## Paul Hostetter

Stew-Mac offers a mandolin machine with a different contour, more like what Brian was talking about**:



But these weren't typical of Loars.

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CedarSlayer, 

Hendrik Ahrend

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## bryankimsey

> But these weren't typical of Loars.


I've never re-strung a Loar, so I didn't know this little nugget of information.  

When I get one in my hands, I tend to play it more than look at the tuners....  :Wink:

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## stringduster

I had Alessi's on both my high end mandolins back when few folks knew who he was, and unless he's stepped up his game in the last few years I found them no better than Waverlys and sold them. I'm not happy with the price of Waverly's but I'm thinking about putting them on an '81 Gibson I own anyway. Hoping of course to find a used set.

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## Lefty Luthier

Though I install Waverly when requested, in no way do I believe they are worth the cost when compared to Alessi or even the premium Gotoh. My one genuine criticism of Waverly is the undersize buttons. Older people with a bit of arthritis in their fingers have difficulty turning them. I prefer Grover or Gotoh where you get a very good tuner without breaking the bank.

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