As many of you may know, I’ve been working on various machining and metal projects related to stringed instruments, and a few of them ended up as “products,” including “Jack the Gripper” and “Frank’s Cranks.”
One project is far less obvious unless you have the misfortune of living with me. In 1974, a friend who worked in a local high tech machine shop developed and made a banjo tuner using a preloaded ball bearing drive that had no gears. I thought it was pretty amazing, because it also had a higher than usual ratio, nearly 10:1, if I recall.
Three decades later, I found myself on the learning curve to operate a home machine shop. That’s when I started working with different designs, and trying to make my own preloaded ball bearing planetary drive banjo peg.
It’s a long story so I’ll try to keep to the bullet points.
I’m no machinist or engineer, so all my work is more on the order of “tinkering” - making and trying stuff until it works (or doesn’t). Over about ten years I spent some time messing about and working on the preloaded ball bearing principle until I was able to make a peg that worked very well and was absolutely smooth in its action. I showed my prototype to the StewMac folks who voiced approval and felt it solved the problem of the sort of “grind-y” feel of the conventional geared tuner.
All was well until I started testing my tuner on guitars. I discovered one small flaw. It simply wasn’t strong enough to hold the tension!
Back to my lack of drawing board, I set about looking at other ways to work on the problem. I hit on the idea of a different sort of drive, and made my first prototype cycloidal peg in 2010. I don’t know if it’s a big deal, but I’m unaware of another instrument tuner employing a cycloidal reduction drive, so maybe I can claim credit for being the first.
A few years ago I called banjo maker Bill Rickard because I heard he was working on making the ultimately smooth banjo peg. He was improving the planetary gear system, and having no end of difficulty getting the gears perfectly machined. As we spoke, I told him of my experimentation and the crying need for high ratio tuners for the guitar crowd, which surprised him. Over the course of several discussions, I eventually turned over my designs and experimental tuners so he might incorporate some ideas into his project.
Well, the time has finally come. Bill has patented his version of the cycloidal drive and started actual manufacture of the tuners we’ve all been waiting for.
They have a ten-to-one ratio, are perfectly smooth with no backlash, simply can’t slip and have no need for tension on the button.
Here's a quick silent video on the assembly and operation of my big bass banjo tuner, illustrating the cycloidal drive principle Bill improved and developed for these great new tuners:
https://youtu.be/Dfs--w3lorw