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Vintage L-50 Tuners


ETThompson

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Hi

 

New to the forum & this is my first post...

 

I'm considering a '37 L-50. It's beat up but a pretty good price and I've just fell in love with it (I don't own any archtops currently and I've been wanting one for quite a while).

 

This one has what appear to be replacement tuners. The older looking ones (may or may not be original) are Grovers (stamped on back) with white plastic buttons. The newer replacement ones are shiny silver buttons with no label. Anyway, some of the latter are sticky and would probably need to be replaced (I will probably also talk them down on price because of it).

 

What would be the best replacements for these? I suppose I could try to find some actual vintage working ones, but short of that, what would people recommend?

 

Thanks

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Hi and welcome. By "best" do you mean best quality? Best functioning? Best match for the originals? The best quality that I have on a guitars are Waverly. The Grovers are good in my opinion as well and substantially cheaper. Stewmac has many different tuners on their site and specs for them as well. I would be surprised if you couldn't find something suitable there. Of course good old 3 on a strip Klusons usually suit a Gibson well and about $50 on eBay.

G'luck!

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Here are a few pics. The silver ones are the (apparently) newer ones. The cream ones are the Grovers.

 

I'm not sure exactly where I'll fall on price/exact match/quality, but I appreciate the suggestions and will look on StewMac.

 

Thanks! --post-84813-099187400 1491277020_thumb.jpgEric

post-84813-074103200 1491277010_thumb.jpg

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These are on a 37 L-4 -- Grover G-98's. These are not in great shape -- in great shape they go for $1000 a set.

 

l4tuners.jpg

 

These were/are high end tuners -- they may and may not have been on an L-50.

 

Best,

 

-Tom

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StewMac is real good at posting all the dimensions. Just make sure the sizes match up within reason and you shouldn't need to do any drilling. One watchout with older guitars are the bushing sizes and shaft diameters. Gibson does make some vintage tulips that have different diameters.

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Here's the back showing the Waverly's

 

BC882F93-33E6-490F-AC1B-05B87B39F038_zpsg9glgeee.jpg

 

 

 

 

These are the Grover's that were on the guitar. They're nice tuners also. I have them on a few of my Gibson's. Direct replacement. Used the same bushings, screws and screw holes. Just drop them in.

 

B67E11C8-85C1-4CFB-8890-1F69FF9FDDFD_zpseykum3tz.jpg

 

 

 

 

Here's some vintage Grover's (not as vintage as Tom's)

 

D49ED9E4-304D-4C95-A41F-13AE612FC640_zpsrf2a86yc.jpg

 

 

 

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