Changing Tuners.....

[onewilyfool]

I know a lot of guys in here have changed their tuners.....Do all of your changes actually cover up the holes of the previous tuners? Are all tuners compatable post size wise????? I'm pretty ignorant of this stuff, but can you swap out open back butter bean Grover tuners for Waverlies???? Are they standard screw hole sizes????

[jchabalk]

Hi there OWF, i changed out the old 70s tuners (all 2 pounds of em) on my '76 Hummingbird to waverly's.

 

In my particular case the shaft sizes didn't match up so i had to order a set of the correctly sized conversion bushings. I didn't know this was the case prior to starting to so pulled one off to swap them and figured out the problem half way through, then i had to reassemble, order the right parts, wait for a week etc...

 

the screws did match closely enough that the old holes were fine to reuse except (!) the old ones didn't line up with where the new ones needed to be, they were about a screws width away, so close enough that it was a problem. I ended up filling all of the old holes with whittled down wood pieces covered in carpenters glue, letting it sit for a day and then redrilling and installing the new ones.

 

it was kind of a pain and the guitar i was doing it to was/is all beat up so i wasn't too concerned with the appearance (although they ended up coming out pretty nicely.

 

I did the same thing to my J-45 TV Ltd a few months later but i took it to a shop to have it done as part of some other work they were doing.

 

Basically i'd say if you have the right parts on hand (And you'll have to measure everything, or pull a single tuner to test-fit) and are patient you'll be fine putting a set of tuners on. you can also readily wreck your instrument too i guess, so be aware of that also

 

good luck!