Replacing tuners on a worn 1960's guitar

[tukituki]

Hello,

I have a rather old nylon string guitar here which needs some new tuners, problem is over the course of its 50 or so year life the holes on the headstock (pls see the photo) have increased dramatically in size, particularly the ones closest to the nut.

I'm wondering if a new solid set of tuners will work in there or will I need to have the holes plugged or filled and then redrilled. Carpentry and wood work are not strong traits of mine but I'm sure I can screw in some new tuners.

Sorry if my question is a little ambiguous, I hope it makes sense.

Thanks for any advice offered.

Matt

[stanron]

You appear to have plain metal posts in the slots. The usual nylon string tuners have wider plastic posts that may well fit those holes perfectly. The screw holes may not line up but that is not so much of a problem. Measure the distance between the centres of the tuning posts. Mine are 35 mm centre to centre. Also get the approximate diameter of the post holes and then see if you can find a match on Ebay or in a local shop. You might just get lucky.

[pops]

Looks like someone has replaced the tuners before as the holes have been plugged and redrilled. If the hole is too loose for the screw just dip a toothpick in some wood glue and place it in the hole and put the screw in and tighten it up. Be sure to break or cut it off flush before putting the new tuners on.

[Ned Milburn]

If you have the thickness, just drill or use a hand file to open the roller holes to that of a standard tuner. They are usually 35mm spacing (centre to centre) and 10mm rollers.

Ebay has some good quality tuners for cheap.

[Frank Ford]

Looks like somebody replaced the gears with a set that had different spacing. That can be an obvious problem with three-on-a-plate tuners in a world where "standards" are a moving target.

The plates (even if they are individual tuners) support the rollers at the outer hole, so it is virtually impossible for that hole to "wear" significantly. So, when you replace the tuners, you can forget about the outer holes. The inner holes do support the shaft, but they don't really wear either - we're not talking significant RPM, you know.

OK, so the easy solution is to get a set of individual tuners made for slotted headstock. Stick them in place so that the inner hole supports the end of the shaft, and screw them down. They will work just fine that way, and you won't have to worry about tuner-to-tuner spacing, or any work to fill or re-drill holes.

This is a cheap guitar after all, and it may not be appropriate to overthink or worry the problem to death, unless, of course, you want to get into more sophisticated work for the experience it can provide.

[tukituki]

Thanks everybody. Frank you are right in that it is a cheap guitar - I picked it up for $10 at a charity store! Nice and easy to play though.
Hopefully I can get it working again soon.
Matt