The Steel Guitar Forum

Hey guys, I just purchased a T8 Stringmaster but the problem is that it has a 3 busted tuners. I checked past threads and there are various ways to solve the problem however I am not mechanically inclined to do this myself. I dropped them off to the local guitar shop and he said it would cost up to 200 for just for one set of tuners (8) due to the time it would take to customize them. Are there any relatively simple drop in replacements that wouldn't require any significant modifications? I'm a pedal player but I wanted to try non pedal to see what its like. If I can't find a solution I may end up selling or trading it for a pedal steel. Thanks!

Khoa

There are threads on here about adapting Stew-Mac keys... If you're not mechanically inclined then you are at the mercy of your tech. $200 doesn't seem like much for this job IMO... normally it takes a C-note just to get on the bench these days. I say pay his price and grit your teeth, it'll be worth it in the end.

I forgot to add... this is probably the long-scale model, right? It'll certainly sell for more if it's working right. Tuners are a known issue on these guitars.

Khoa Pham wrote:Are there any relatively simple drop in replacements that wouldn't require any significant modifications?

The answer is unfortunately no - there are no readily available drop in replacements, except for the occasional, rare stringmaster tuning pan that comes up for sale every blue moon. When they come up they go for about $150 and are gone in a heartbeat.

I am moderately mechanically inclined and was able to repair mine for about $7 and an afternoon of tinkering.

As Stephen said, it depends on which version you have.
If youve got the more modern version with oval tuners, it's pretty easy. If you have the older type with the completely round tuners it's more difficult and expensive.

I have the 24.5 scale length so I have the oval tuners. I found these on amazon, has anybody tried dropping these babies in? Im at work right now but to me it looks like you can just bend the tabs and the tuner comes right off or is there something else holding it on to the strip? Thanks for the replies!

http://www.amazon.com/KLUSON-PLATE-MOUN ... luson+slot

Those look like exactly what you need.

You could prise open the tabs, disassemble and mount the bits of the new tuner on the old plate.

Either that or leave them mounted on the plate and cut the plate into single or double tuners, depending on what you need. Even if you ended up with 4 separate tuners, each mounted to a little bit of the strip, it would all be held in place solidly by the tuner pan.

As Jeff said those strip tuners may work if the spacing is right, otherwise you will need to chop them up into singles. You will have to remove the casings. A side of 12 string tuners might be better, so you can cut two off and have a strip of four:
http://www.amazon.com/KLUSON-ON-PLATE-N ... ing+guitar

Tim Whitlock wrote:As Jeff said those strip tuners may work if the spacing is right, otherwise you will need to chop them up into singles. You will have to remove the casings.

I agree that the tuners may have to be chopped up into singles but don't understand why the casings would have to be removed unless the OP was intending to install the guts from the new tuners into the old ones.

If using the new tuners as is, I would certainly try them with the casings on first of all as I reckon they would fit just fine.

Khoa Pham wrote:I have the 24.5 scale length so I have the oval tuners. I found these on amazon, has anybody tried dropping these babies in? Im at work right now but to me it looks like you can just bend the tabs and the tuner comes right off or is there something else holding it on to the strip? Thanks for the replies!

http://www.amazon.com/KLUSON-PLATE-MOUN ... luson+slot

http://www.stewmac.com/Hardware_and_Par ... hines.html

I have had luck with these as well. Had to make a plate and the soldered them. I'll try to post a picture later.

My writeup of what I did is here: http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... highlight=