The Steel Guitar Forum

I bought one of these to replace my old Artisan lap steel that I sold for about what I paid for it simply because I wanted something with legs.

My first thought is these are an improvement over the Artisans because now they at least have a usable super hard plastic nut instead of the old fake rosewood softies that came on the Artisan. The sustain is much better out of the box. Plus the looks are better with the chrome knobs and pickguard. Someone STILL needs to tell the Chinese they can dump the compensated bridges -- probably save a whole $1 in manufacture.

BUT, two of the knobs on the tuning pegs were so loose it made it tough to tune since the knob would slip and then grab meaning that you overshot on the tightening side. There's no screw to tighten the knobs on -- my guess is they are machine press fitted in some fashion.

So back it went to Guitar Center. I didn't want my first mod to be new 3-on-plank tuners all around.

Replacement arrived today and while one set of tuning pegs is fine, the other has two with loose knob syndrome -- although nowhere near as bad as the one I returned. It's livable but I'm trying to think what sort of liquid potion I can dribble into the knobs that will make them tight. It would have to be something thin since the space between the knob and post is pretty small. Any ideas?

NEW NUT DESIGN FWIW:

A drop or two of _thick_ "super glue" in the hole of each of the knobs should do the trick. Flip the guitar on its side, so the knobs are on the bottom. Apply one drop of glue to each of the knobs. After a few minutes, inspect holes, and add more glue if you can still see gaps. Let set for a couple of hours and try knobs.

Plastic knobs are installed by heating the shafts and pushing the knobs on. Someone either made the shafts too hot, or didn't push the knobs on all the way.

BTW, the new nut looks good, but the slots look a little wide for those strings.

Thanks Glenn. I'll give the Super Glue a shot. The buttons are chrome; not plastic. They look nice but I have no clue how they actually attach other than some sort of press fit.

Yeah the string slots are too big for the small strings but it doesn't seem to affect the sustain. It's certainly a LOT better than my old Artisan.

I'm ordering some new strings from Allstrings -- they should be slightly heavier than what's on there. Won't make any difference on the top strings though.

My first project will be to try a mini-humbucker replacement pickup and then rewire the tone control to go fade to single coil.

Even if the knobs are metal, the superglue won't hurt. They could be chrome-plated plastic, too. I doubt if thee knobs are metal, because it is easy to make metal knobs fit well on metal shafts. They have to be pressed on, but press easiest if they are the right size. Can you pull one off easily? Looking in the hole would tell you if they are metal or plastic.

Good Luck!

I hadn't considered they were chromed plastic and they are LOL. Put a magnet on them and no stick. They sure look like metal -- right down the outline of the post.

A magnet would only stick to them if they were iron-based. The could still be metal if they were die-cast zinc or aluminum, or cast brass, but them they would not have the slipping problem.

Try to fix the tuners with the glue, play the guitar for a while, and see if they hold up. If they don't, save up your money for a set of _real_ replacement tuners from Stew-Mac.

If you could pull one off, you could then put some epoxy in the hole and glue it back on.

For less than $100 the little RLS's aren't really that bad, although you could spend $25 more and get a Rondo that is better or about $35 - $50 more and get a Recording King that is much better. For instance: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Recording-King- ... 3f394d4b94

I looked at the Rondo but it's actually $50 more when you include shipping which for my experimental purposes was $50 more than I needed to spend. Guitar Center shipped it free and I had a $10 off coupon.