Fixing old tuners ('22 Gibson)

[liestman]

I have a great 22 Gibson A2 mandolin with very clean and working tuners except one that tends to slip a bit. Any guidance on how to fix that one tuner to stay put?

[Pribar]

I have a great 22 Gibson A2 mandolin with very clean and working tuners except one that tends to slip a bit. Any guidance on how to fix that one tuner to stay put?

Check out frets.com, Frank Ford has a tuner maintenance section if I remember, I am on my cell or I would go look and link it for ya, without seeing them I can't be of much more use than that, sorry, maybe one of the more knowledgeable guys will pop in later and provide more information hopefully.

[George R. Lane]

Café member Paul Hosetter has a great tutorial on this subject.

http://www.lutherie.net/tuner.maintenance.html

[liestman]

He does and that was the first place I looked (it is a GREAT article). But it seems to be all about fixing tuners that are a bit frozen and cranky (I could be wrong) and this tuner has the opposite problem.

[Paul Hostetter]

Look again. Slippage like you describe is usually because the string is binding in a slot in the nut, and that's mentioned at the very beginning. In any case, it doesn't hurt to make the tuners themselves work well, too.

[Tobin]

Look again. Slippage like you describe is usually because the string is binding in a slot in the nut, and that's mentioned at the very beginning.

It could also be binding against an adjacent string winding around the tuner post, which would do the same thing for tuning slippage as if it were binding in the nut. These old Gibsons had the tuner angle so severe that some strings have to rub against another one on their way to their tuner post. I know on my F4 the second G string is a major pain to get in tune and stay in tune because of this. The winding tends to grab against the winding of the first G string where it's wrapped around the post. The tuner button feels loose when I try to back it off, because it's binding against the first G string. And that second G string actually has to bend a little to pass the first tuner post.

If yours is a 1922 A2, I'm betting it does the same thing. Is that the tuner that gives you problems (2nd G string)?

[Paul Hostetter]

Not so extreme (this is a '22 A-2):



Not bad on most F-4s I've seen either. A friend's 1915, and my 1912:



The only way you might get in trouble with post interference is if you have a lot of string wound around a post, but why would you do something like that?

Back to the OP's issue, he has one tuner that's giving him grief. It could be friction inside the hole in the headstock, and that's covered in my little maintenance tutorial, but I'll bet you a dollar to a donut it's a bad nut slot. The A strings are always the troublemakers. We shall see.

[RonEllison]

Check out frets.com, Frank Ford has a tuner maintenance section if I remember, I am on my cell or I would go look and link it for ya, without seeing them I can't be of much more use than that, sorry, maybe one of the more knowledgeable guys will pop in later and provide more information hopefully.

This is the article. Click on the 'Back to index page' link and scroll down for more on repairing tuners.

[liestman]

It is the 1st or lower of the pair of D strings that is giving the problem. As an experiment, I also reversed which on was operated by which tuner (so, I undid them, attached the 1st D string - the one closest to the G strings - to the furthest out tuner and attached the 2nd D string to the closer in tuner) and, just as when set up normally, the closer in tuner is the one that slips. To my mind (please correct if I am wrong!), that takes the nut and the string itself out of the equation, so I am thinking it is that one tuner itself.

I will go back through Paul's process and report back. And check and lube the nut slot while I am at it.

[Paul Hostetter]

It is the 1st or lower of the pair of D strings that is giving the problem. As an experiment, I also reversed which one was operated by which tuner (so, I undid them, attached the 1st D string - the one closest to the G strings - to the furthest out tuner and attached the 2nd D string to the closer in tuner) and, just as when set up normally, the closer in tuner is the one that slips. To my mind (please correct if I am wrong!), that takes the nut and the string itself out of the equation, so I am thinking it is that one tuner itself.

Either way, the string from the closer post is going to the same slot in the nut. Which indicates to me that a) it's not the string, but b) it is the nut slot.

There's a slim chance (already mentioned) that the post is encountering friction. Easily addressed.

You never need to lube a nut—pure folklore. They self-burnish, if they are bone. But you should touch off that slot so the string can glide through smoothly: http://www.lutherie.net/nuts.html

[liestman]

I touched off the slot to no avail. (By the way, when I switched the strings between tuners, the change was made between the nut and the tuner, so the problem string was still in the same nut slot as normal.)

But I redid the whole tuner maintenance procedure described in Paul's article and it has cured the problem. Everything already looked squeaky clean and well-lubricated but . . . whatever, it worked. Thanks so much to you, Paul, for providing the benefit of your decades of experience to us rank beginners. Very much appreciated!

[Paul Hostetter]

Whew!