Adjusting Waverly Tuners

[LARRY KLOSE]

I have a set of Waverly mandolin tuners on my main instrument.  The tuners are well installed, the posts are properly aligned with the gear mechanism and everything works well with no backlash EXCEPT:

Several of the tuner shafts stick slightly then release, making it stiff and difficult to get precise adjustments--sort of analogous to a string sticking in a nut slot .  This isn't made any better by the developing arthritis in my left hand.  This occurs whether or not there's a string on the tuner so I don't think it's a worm and gear mis-mesh.  Everything is well lubricated.  I suspect the problem is the adjustable collar around the tuner shafts being a bit too tight.  

I understand that SM has a tool to adjust those collars, but they won't sell one to me.  They want me to send the tuners back for shop adjustment--they say there's loctite on the collars and they don't want user adjustments.  Nice idea but then I don't have a functional mandolin for whatever the turnaround time is and it sacrifices a set of strings beside.  I haven't found any local luthier with the tool.

Is this tool (or a substitute) available anywhere else?  If the loctite isn't the version that releases easily, can it be chemically broken?  

All my other instruments (6 of them) adjust tuning nice and smooth--the Waverly's are the most expensive of all the tuners I have and because of this are the stiffest.

Any suggestions are welcome.  

Thanks,

Larry

[Howard Klepper]

The Waverly adjustment tool is not as easy to use as you may think.  It is not a well-designed tool.  It's a stamped piece of sheet steel and getting enough torque on it to break the red loctite is hard to do with just fingers gripping it; you would need much stronger fingers than mine.  Gripping it with some other tool and keeping its forks in the notches in the collar is not easy, and you could just bend the forks or keep popping them out of the collar.

While I have not made my own, I don't thing that making your own tool, and making it better than the one StewMac used to send, would be a huge deal.

But your problem does not sound as if the adjustment collars are too tight.  That just causes the tuner to feel tight and be harder to turn, but does not make it stop and skip.  The most common problem with Waverlies is that they are very sensitive to misalignment between the post and the peghead bushing.  This is NOT a misalignment of the post to the gear mechanism when the tuner is off the guitar.  It's the post hole either not being perfectly centered in the bushing counterbore, or the post hole being oversized (as when the whole hole is drilled to the bushing diameter) and the tuner plate not being screwed to the back of the headstock so that the post is perfectly centered in the bushing.

With the tuners off the guitar--not just with string tension removed, which won't fix the misalignment of the post and bushing--do you get the same stop and skip movement?

[LARRY KLOSE]

Thanks for the info.  Here's more.

The mandolin had Gotoh tuners on it before and they worked very well.  Do they have larger posts than the Waverly's?  If so, the larger bore could be the cause of the problem.  The bushings are the prewar type stamped bushing and not the ones that came with the tuners.  Would installing the Waverly bushings make a difference?

I can't put the Gotoh's back on because one of the button shafts is broken... .

The mandolin was built by the lateTaku Sakashta, who generally built with wonderful workmanship--but who knows?  I can't ask him about it... .  It came with a set of Schaller tuners and he sent the Gotohs later as he was having them silver plated when I bought the axe.  Both of those worked fine.

Better centering might be a slight problem since the tuners are 4 on a plate.

This looks like it'll be a work in progress because I just restrung with a set of beta strings and until those get old I don't want to undo it.  When next I restring, I'll pull the tuners and see what the status is.

Thanks,

Larry

[LARRY KLOSE]

Maybe I'm solving my own problem... .  I haven't removed the tuners yet but I measured the old Gotoh post shafts and they're .262", vs. .250" (1/4") for the Waverly's.  that's one potential problem.  The spacing between shaft holes appears to be spot on, however.  Also, the old style stamped peghead bushings are bigger than the Waverly shafts--there's clearance around the back when the strings are under tension.  That could cause a problem for sure. From here it looks like I should pull the tuners, install the Waverly bushings and make sure everything lines up.

From other pages on the SM web site it appears that I may not need to plug the original Post holes and redrill for the 1/4" Waverly posts--SM's page of conversion bushings to use with Waverly's when originally drilled for larger shafts of other brands states that the conversions can be used without plugging/re-drilling.

Comments?

Larry

 

[Howard Klepper]

That .012" difference will mean that the post on the Waverlies is being pulled a bit off center to where it contacts the bushing, and it is enough to interfere with the engagement of the ring gear and worm.  Also, the Gotohs may have a looser fit of the bushing to the post than the Waves do. 

It would be a good idea to install the Waverly bushings.

[Frank Ford]

I believe what  you're experiencing is a phenomenon that's common to precision, accurately machined and tightly fitted mechanisms, and not exactly a defect or an adjustment issue.  I notice the effect (often called "sticktion") on all varieties of the Waverly gears, even when they're not yet mounted on an instrument.  Tuners that don't exhibit it are generally more loosely fitted, such as all diecast enclosed tuning machines (Grover, Schaller, Ping, Gotoh, etc.)

I Here's a bit from Wikipedia:  

"Stiction is the static friction that needs to be overcome to enable relative motion of stationary objects in contact.^[1] The term is a portmanteau of the term "static friction",^[2]perhaps also influenced by the verb "stick".

Any solid objects pressing against each other (but not sliding) will require some threshold of force parallel to the surface of contact in order to overcome static cohesion. Stiction is a threshold, not a continuous force."

[LARRY KLOSE]

That's the way it feels but on some of the keys, it doesn't exist--they're smooth.  So would releasing the tension nuts on the key shafts release some of that?  It turns hard enough that it bothers my arthritic hands, even though most other playing motions don't have much effect.  Before the arthritis, it was just a nuisance--now it's literally a pain sometimes.  I'm going to change out the peghead ferrules eventually but if it can be overcome a little it would be very helpful.  Murphy being around and who he is, the stickiest ones seem to be the ones in the middle (F5).

I have some of those other more loosely fitted machines and they can be very smooth indeed--a set of the full size Schaller's come to mind.  I have some Schaller mini's, just as smooth but with lots of backlash.

I'm familiar with stiction.  It's the phenomenon that causes the chain on a mountain bike to hang on the front chainring and jamming instead of stretching out so the thing can be shifted.

Thanks,

Larry