I SPENT THE ENTIRE DAY in the workshop installing tuners, making bone nuts and saddles and stringing up the soprano Pinecone ukes. Only one more to finish. I thought you might like to know about installing these wonderful Peghed tuners. Pegheds are modern geared tuners that look just like old ebony violin pegs. They are made of space age materials, aluminum and steel and plastics and they have internal planetary gears which provide a 4 to 1 gear ratio, just perfect for ukuleles. They are guaranteed for life, very well made. I put them on all of my ukes unless a customer insists on some other tuner. There are a few tricks to installing them
An excellent suggestion from the manufacturer is to wrap a small rubber band around the tuner to improve your grip as you thread them into the hole in your instrument. They are small and slick and this gives you excellent purchase. A huge help. I find it very helpful to set them on the workbench like this. Right hand threads on the right, left hand threads on the left. They must be screwed into the instrument in the direction that you would lessen the tension on the string. If you do it backwards they will not hold the string tension.
The Peghed's threads are slightly tapered. It is necessary to have an auger with a 3 degree taper to match those threads. I have also found that there can be tiny differences in the width of the threaded section so it is wise to fit each tuner to its hole. auger the hole to the approximate size and then test frequently by trying to screw the tuner in. When it is just right mark the auger with a marking pen to establish an approximate depth- but be sure to stop short of that mark the next time to check again and again as you slowly increase the hole size.
Note the black mark on the auger. At this point I begin to check by screwing in the tuner as far as I can-then unscrewing it, cutting a bit more with the auger and testing once more until the tuner screws in to exactly the right depth and will go no farther.
Then place one drop of glue on the threads of the tuner and screw it into the wood. The previous testing insertions will have tapped tiny threads into the wood and the Peghed will screw in readily. You want it to go in until the entire end has emerged and just the shoulder of the first thread is level with the wood of your instrument.
It is not that difficult if you have the proper tools, but if you do not- take it to a luthier who does have the tools.
You will love Peghead tuners. I highly recommend them.
It is not that difficult if you have the proper tools, but if you do not- take it to a luthier who does have the tools.
You will love Peghead tuners. I highly recommend them.
Some of the day was spent making nuts and saddles from round buffalo bones. that involves rough sawing on the bandsaw, fine sawing with a jeweler's saw, sanding with the power sander and final shaping and sizing on a block with sandpaper attached. Kind of fussy work but this Bison bone is harder than heck and transmits sound better than anything. I get leg bones from a local buffalo rancher and use them unbleached.
Only one more to go and the litter will be complete. I have put the fun colored Aurora Strings on these ukes. One with red strings, one green, another multi-colored, another orange. Not sure what I will use on the last one still on the workbench. If you would like some of these excellent and fun colored strings, I have them for soprano, concert and tenor at $5.00 plus mailing. I also have colored low G strings at $3.00 ea. Order a set or two and perk up your uke.