[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by k_russell

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

If you changed tuning machines on an old (vintage?) Guild. What tuners did you use? Mine is a D40c built in 1981.

The original ones have Guild stamped on sealing plate (on the back). The folks at the Guild website have no information about models this old.

If they don't have the bulbous cases of Grover Rotomatics, there's a good chance that they're either Schaller or Sperzel tuners. During that era both of those companies routinely etched guitar company logos on the back plates of their tuners.

Here's a tiny picture of the back of a 1980 Martin with Sperzel gears on it:

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Here's another tiny picture:

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Neither of those examples show etched logos on the back plates, but I bought an aftermarket set of them that did, to use when the Grover Rotomatics on my Mossman guitar crapped out. The tuners I got did not have the Sperzel brand name anywhere on them, but that's what they were. (Mine said: "C.F. Martin & Co.")

So if the tuners on your guitar have that same case as the ones in those photos, they're probably Sperzels.

Now, here's a photo of a 1979 Ovation with the Ovation logo on the tuner back plates:

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So if that's the shape of the tuner case and back plate, they're probably Schallers.

The Sperzels have a round back plate and the Schallers have a shield-shaped back plate.

Here's some 70's vintage Guild tuners:

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Is that what's on your guitar?

If so, those are made by Gotoh, and good luck trying to match those exactly to anything modern. I've never seen that model tuner before, and I doubt that they were in production for very long.

Okay, by following that image from my image search back to the source, I learned that there's a guy who specializes in selling parts that match those found on Guilds manufactured in Westerly, Rhode Island. Here's the page that shows the various tuners Guild used:

http://www.theguitarmechanic.com/GuildTuner.html

That was an education in and of itself. I was right about Guild using Schallers (sometimes,) but wrong about Sperzel. However, Guild also used tuners made by Grover, a company called Kolb that I'm unfamiliar with, and even Ping!

So look at that page and see which ones match the tuners on your guitar.

One more thought: unless you want tuners with the Guild logo on them, you can almost certainly find excellent modern tuners that can serve as direct drop-in replacements for the originals, and will probably tune more accurately, besides, for a lot less money than you'll need to spend to get originals.

It all comes down to whether you're primarily interested in getting functional tuners that work better or if you're also trying to do a restoration at the same time. The late 70's and early 80's were actually kind of a low point for the quality level of most brands of tuning gears (with the striking exception of Schaller, which was making superb gears at that time.) But if you're trying to keep the guitar historically correct, getting a replacement set of the original tuners is a good idea.

Hope this helps.


Wade Hampton Miller