dhanners623 Posted March 23, 2010 Share Posted March 23, 2010 Well, UPS is supposed to deliver the new tuners I ordered for my IB'64 Texan today, so maybe tonight I can install them. As we've discussed here before, Epiphone drilled the holes for the posts for the 2nd and 5th strings out of line with the 1st/3rd and 4th/6th strings, so the 3-on-a-plate tuners they install on them have to be mashed in, thereby bending the posts for the 2nd and 5th strings. I'm convinced it does something to the other tuners as well, but I could be wrong. Anyway, I ordered a set of Gotoh 3-on-a-side individual tuners with white oval buttons. Since they are individual, there'll be no post-bending issues. I'll probably age the buttons so they won't look so white; those white ones just look too bright for my tastes. Maybe I can take photos of the operation and post them later, if I can figure out how to do that. Still loving the guitar. I get more impressed with it every day. Played an open mic with it Sunday night, the second time I've plugged it in, and it sounded great. Sound guy (a good friend I know and trust) said he didn't have to do anything to it, and he was impressed with the sound. Next month, I'm playing a "mini-tour" down in Illinois -- five shows in five days -- and I'm planning on taking the guitar (along with my J-45) so we'll see how the Texan holds up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frenchie1281734003 Posted March 23, 2010 Share Posted March 23, 2010 Just remember to fill in the existing screw holes before fitting the new tuners, I used cocktail sticks dipped in PVA glue. Good luck with the installation, and I look forward to seeing the results. Best of luck with the "Mini tour" as well. Steve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianh Posted March 23, 2010 Share Posted March 23, 2010 Do post some before/after pics David, here's the how to link: http://forums.epiphone.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=8886 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhanners623 Posted March 23, 2010 Author Share Posted March 23, 2010 Well, I won't be changing the tuners today.... Ordered the stuff from Imperial Guitars in New York, and they sent me the tuners with the green plastic keystone buttons instead of the white oval buttons, WHICH I SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED WHEN I PHONED IN MY ORDER. Ugh. So I send them back tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockanrolla Posted March 24, 2010 Share Posted March 24, 2010 Did you make sure the rods where 6mm ?, The bushes are to fit a 9mm hole but the standard rod size is 7mm (for 9mm bush), I only ask as I did the same and had to send back and re-order, I thought they were standard. Look forward to seeing your results. P.S, sorry I don't know the imperial sizes, I'm in the U.K and have to go by the metric. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhanners623 Posted March 24, 2010 Author Share Posted March 24, 2010 Well, I had to change strings today anyway, so I figured while I was at it, I might as well "age" the tuner buttons so those bright white globs of plastic don't bug me anymore. I followed the Dan Erlewine's easy-to-follow instructions for aging tuners that can be found on the Stewart-MacDonald website. First, the tuners as they looked when I started. (Excuse the red towel background. That was what I put over the kitchen table to use as a workbench....) Then I put on some rubber gloves, got out the brown Kiwi shoe polish and covered the tuner buttons with polish. I let them sit for 20 minutes: After waiting, I used paper towels to clean off the polish. After some rubbing, this is the finished product: As you can see, the brightness of the plastic buttons is toned down quite a bit. Much more pleasing to the eye. My eye, anyway. They match the binding on the body and just look better. One thing I should note -- the buttons that come on the stock tuners are injection-molded plastic, so they have a seam down the middle. Sometimes, the mold halves line up properly and sometimes they don't. When they don't, one side of the button is a bit offset from the other. In an attempt to minimize this, I scraped off the seam as best I could with an X-acto knife. (And thanks for the tutorial on posting photos, brianh. It was quite helpful....) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianh Posted March 24, 2010 Share Posted March 24, 2010 Shoe polish! I hadn't thought of that. I was thinking hot black tea, but didn't think the headstock would fit in the kettle! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhanners623 Posted March 24, 2010 Author Share Posted March 24, 2010 Here's Erlewine's full tutorial: http://www.stewmac.com/tradesecrets/ts0017_agedtuners.hzml?jrl=538&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ts0017&clk=81341 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianh Posted March 24, 2010 Share Posted March 24, 2010 Nice. I can never find the links to those damn Trade Secrets pages when I need to. Dis you also do the etching thing? Nah probably not, it's a new guit... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhanners623 Posted March 24, 2010 Author Share Posted March 24, 2010 I thought about the etching thing but decided against it. I'm thinking with the way the guitar looks, the aged machines would look kind of strange. Plus, it's a lot of work with some gnarly chemicals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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