Looking for smaller (92mm-long) tuning machine for toy guitar
I have a 17" scale toy guitar that with surprisingly good playability and sound given the cost, US$18-38 in a market in rural Mexico, which my rambunctious 7-y.o. is learning to play classical style. I don’t want to buy a nicer guitar yet because he WILL bang it up, and there is a Yamaha Guitalele 17" scale waiting for him to move up to when his older brother outgrows it and he learns how to treat things with greater care.
The only problem is the tuners, which really suck and slip. If I can find cheap ones that are firmer and replace it, it’s the cheapest option, but these are only 92mm overall length, 16.5mm wide, and 25mm between each screw hole as well as between each tuning peg’s center. I’d rather spend US$10-15 on this than a lot more on a newer 17" guitar if I can.
I’ve never changed a tuning head before, and assume I can turn to some advice online, but the first hurdle is that when I started looking up replacements (starting at $10 PPD to Taiwan from Amazon and locally on Shopee and Ruten), all were significantly larger than this one.
So, do you know of good suppliers that might carry smaller sizes (and ship one this size to me at a reasonable cost)?[attachment=0]X 17 inch SL tuners side small.jpg[/attachment] I’ve been searching locally for 古典吉他調音釘機頭 but they’re turning up at over 10cm.
All the ones I found on Stewmac are 1 3/8" string post spacing, yours appear to be 1".
I have spare tuner parts and may be able to repair the tuner… otherwise I don’t know what else to do.
Stewmac also sells tuners designed for slotted peghead, but are individual (rather than 3 on a plate) that might work… but they’re kinda expensive.
Thanks, TL. I might take you up on that. We’d have to look at feasibility first. To help judge that, here is the top view; it looks to me like the gear could be replaced (since it has a philips screw at the center) but the peg and its threaded axle (or whatever you call it) look permanently affixed in the machine, so it would depend on whether it’s a couple of bad gears or the threads on the peg axles. Given the price, it’s probably just junk overall.
I thought perhaps since there 6-string baritone ukes (guitaleles, guileles) with guitar-style side-plate tuning machines like the Yamaha Guitalele GL1 (YG hereafter), that there should be a source for the tuners, not just for replacement but for builders, and tuning machines for full-size start pretty darn cheap, at around US$10.
The YG, though, has a 10.5cm-long tuner plate with 35mm spacing, like most bigger guitars. Do you know of a good luthier forum other than the luthier sections at delcamp (classicalguitardelcamp) and acousticguitarforum, or any local parts suppliers I could contact?
Of course, one alternative might be to just pick up another 17" scale length toy… If it were blue, he’d love it, but I’d want to at least try it in a store instead of ending up with more untunable junk, and I can’t shop in stores right now.
There’s Official Luthier Forum, I posted there for a while.
35mm sounds like about 1 3/8 which is standard for guitars.
I won’t make any guarantees for compatibility but I do have bags of spare parts that I may be able to just repair the tuner, or at least oil them.
Is this a nylon string guitar?
I found what you are looking for on Taobao.
1 Like
Yeah, it’s a nylon-strung wooden 17" scale toy guitar. Excellent, thanks! The size looks perfect from the side plate aspect; however, their measurement from the inner edge of the plate to the string hole is 19mm and then there’s very little length after that on the string winding ‘axle’ (not sure what they’re called). My pic here shows that 19 to the string hole is fine, but significantly more length will be needed to reach the center wooden part of the guitar head. I’m afraid I might need to still keep looking. However, I could ask the seller to measure it to the very end. Could you please provide the link to that page? I only see the picture here. Thanks again!
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a312a.7700824.w4002-16060366072.60.cf3f3b48mqyJJe&id=584436315172
It says it’s intended for 6 string ukelele. But it appears to be a different type than what you have (it has a grommet), probably for solid pegheads.
Otherwise everything else is intended for classical guitars and all have 35mm spacing.
Well, many thanks for helping me look, TL! I do appreciate it. I think the next solution is to look for a nice, inexpensive replacement as soon as I’m allowed to venture into guitar stores (probably in about three weeks if I wear a moon suit).
