Why do guitar tuners turn the wrong way?

[jschmitz54]

Originally Posted by donlyn

Long time ago, say 60s or early 70s, one of my friends convinced another to help paint his house. The owner bought light blue paint for the shingles and dark blue for the trim. He said I'll start on this side and you do the other side. (It wasn't a big house; a bit on the smallish side.)
So he started with the light blue paint on the shingles. After about an hour or so, he went over to see how things were going.

The other guy was painting the shingles dark blue.

True story, for which many aphorisms come to mind.
Could even make up a few new ones.

And the time period probably had some relevance. ;-)
More like Cheech and Chong than the Three Stooges.

Don
.

Some story!
Being from MN with a large Scandinavian population we somehow have Ole and Sven humor. Hopefully this will offend no one. My sister in law works at an all things Swedish store in Minneapolis and each Sunday they send out the Sven and Ole stories to their customers. No offense intended. Hopefully we can all laugh at ourselves a little.

[rampix]

“I believe "righty tighty" comes from the vector cross product and related to rotation in physics. In a right handed coordinate system, "crossing" a vector clockwise (X x Y for instance) produces a vector into the plane, which is the -z direction in the xy plane.”

My first thought to rob😉😉

[Jeff Scott]

Originally Posted by jazzereh

Maybe this has been discussed someplace here and if so please direct me with a link.

In a normal world - construction, electrical, even twist ties - it would be 'normal' and expected that if you are tightening something, say a screw into a board or a wire onto a terminal, you turn it clockwise. Guitar tuners, to tighten, ie raise the pitch, of a string are turned counter clockwise.

I've wondered about this for a long time. Hasn't kept me up at night, yet, but figured I'd finally ask.

Why?

There was a time when tuning keys (some of them, anyway) worked just like you'd prefer. These days those are called reverse wind tuning keys. Why? Good question.

Makes me thing of Gibdon Firebird guitars. The one ones from the early to mid '60s are now called reverse F-birds after some genius decided to basically turn the body around, thus creating the later version of the F-bird. So, since the later version came, er, later, why are the older, original version called reverse?

Once again, good question. I guess it's just one of those mysteries we will never get to the bottom of.

[darkwave]

Regarding Gibson Firebirds - I was always confused about that as well. Now it is my understanding that people at the time considered the Firebird to be an offset body, like the Fender Jazzmaster, but flipped. The long horn was on the bottom rather than the top - thus "reversed".

I can keep it straight now with this in mind, whether that is the true history or not.

Originally Posted by Jeff Scott

There was a time when tuning keys (some of them, anyway) worked just like you'd prefer. These days those are called reverse wind tuning keys. Why? Good question.

Makes me thing of Gibdon Firebird guitars. The one ones from the early to mid '60s are now called reverse F-birds after some genius decided to basically turn the body around, thus creating the later version of the F-bird. So, since the later version came, er, later, why are the older, original version called reverse?

Once again, good question. I guess it's just one of those mysteries we will never get to the bottom of.

[Jeff Scott]

Originally Posted by darkwave

Regarding Gibson Firebirds - I was always confused about that as well. Now it is my understanding that people at the time considered the Firebird to be an offset body, like the Fender Jazzmaster, but flipped. The long horn was on the bottom rather than the top - thus "reversed".

I can keep it straight now with this in mind, whether that is the true history or not.

I see. People flipped out, so they decided to flip the terminology around.

From where I come from, if something was turned around, that then (then that) becomes the reverse, not the original.

Must be a 7ender/Gibsön thing.

[Jeff Scott]

Originally Posted by jazzereh

Maybe this has been discussed someplace here and if so please direct me with a link.

In a normal world - construction, electrical, even twist ties - it would be 'normal' and expected that if you are tightening something, say a screw into a board or a wire onto a terminal, you turn it clockwise. Guitar tuners, to tighten, ie raise the pitch, of a string are turned counter clockwise.

I've wondered about this for a long time. Hasn't kept me up at night, yet, but figured I'd finally ask.

Why?

Here's the real answer. The best way to conceptualize it is this: as you turn the tuning key button to raise the pitch of the string, you are stretching the string, so think of the top of the button (the area towards the front of the headstock) as pulling on the string as you turn it.

I'm sure this clears everything up (or, not ).

[N4640W]

I’m very happy convention has led the tuning machines to do what they do in the way that they do. Alas, I am an analog man in a digital world.

[AndrewG]

Fender Precision basses had tuners which worked in reverse up until 1968. To raise pitch you turned the tuner toward you.

[upsidedown]

While you twist the tuner's knob to the left to tighten, the actual gear that the knob engages turns to the right. So, sleep easy OP, all's right in the world.

[sinistral]

To the OP, you are in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, tuners tighten strings in the opposite direction.

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by robj144

I believe "righty tighty" comes from the vector cross product and related to rotation in physics. In a right handed coordinate system, "crossing" a vector clockwise (X x Y for instance) produces a vector into the plane, which is the -z direction in the xy plane.

Yes, that's where I learned about the right-hand rule.

- Glenn

[RogerHaggstrom]

Before ca 1925, slotted head tuners had a worm cut the other way and the worm closer to the nut than the cog. To increase pith, the button was turned the same way as they are now with the string winded on top of the post. The "cog above the worm" arrangement is good on a slotted head, since the cog and worm are tightened when the string is tensioned.

With a flat head, the geometry is turned around and the cog and worm is tightened with tension if the worm is above the cog - the way all tuners are made nowadays (except maybe some vintage style replacement Gibson mandolin tuners). Around 1925-1930, most parlor guitar were made with a flat head instead of a slotted head. I suppose that the tuner makers decided to use that configuration for all tuners for simplicity, including the ones made for slotted heads, although that actually is the wrong way to do it!

Old style "cog above the worm" on a slotted head can be very nice and tight, even when they have a lot of play with no strings at tension.

[Silly Moustache]

Strange. Maybe it depends on where you are in relation to the gears.
Something to do with the order of levers and the Gear theory
See : https://www.geartechnology.com/issue...ear_Theory.pdf

I'm left handed but was forced to be right handed so I'm amphibious .... or is it ambiguous ?

Anyway, righty tighty, lefty loosey, RHD LHD dexter, sinister all mean nothing to me. all the same - sdepends which had is ...handy.

BTW - Only yesterday I learned that to open a Central heating radiator you unscrew it !! Who'd a'thought it?

Thinks - I need to ring the plumber.

[davidbeinct]

Originally Posted by rampix

“I believe "righty tighty" comes from the vector cross product and related to rotation in physics. In a right handed coordinate system, "crossing" a vector clockwise (X x Y for instance) produces a vector into the plane, which is the -z direction in the xy plane.”

My first thought to rob😉😉

The phrase feels more idiomatic than something coming out of engineering and physics. I suspect for most people the fact that the top of the rotation (when looking down from above) is turning right is where the phrase comes from. I think most people don’t think about the fact that the bottom of the circle is turning left. As to why almost all threads go righty tighty I believe that’s because most of us are right handed and can produce more torque turning things clockwise.

[EZYPIKINS]

you can buy left handed tuners that spin the opposite direction.

Unless you have a problem calling them left handed.