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  #1  
Old 03-19-2020, 03:40 PM
rmsstrider rmsstrider is offline
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Default Eastman E20om Tuner Replacement Success

I recently bought a new Eastman E20om and I love the guitar but not so much the Ping V93 tuners. So I ordered a set of Gotoh SE700 scalloped tuners. I thought I could easily install them myself as they looked like an easy switch.
Fortunately I decided to let my local luthier install them for me and I am glad I did. I read that the bushings from Eastman had some glue on the bushings that made it difficult to remove them . My luthier said it was a more difficult job than he anticipated.
He said there was a lot of glue and getting them out was really hard without damaging the head stock. He also had to ream the holes a bit to accept the new ones. He did a fantastic job and the cost was 50.00. I paid 49.00 for the Gotoh tuners.
Now he mentioned that when he compared the old Ping tuners against the new Gotoh tuners under a glass with good lighting that the Gotohs were much better made in his opinion. Even the new screws were beefier and deeper and he said the overall contact to wood much better. And they look great.
And i think are much smoother and I think these are the tuners that Eastman is using on the 40 series guitars .
Anyway, i just thought i would share this .
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Old 03-19-2020, 03:54 PM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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Glad you had a good experience with that.

Normally I swap out tuners myself, but when I got my Eastman I chose to have my repairman do the work, largely because the tuners I decided to use on the guitar were a set of Schertlers, which are open gears but not in the same vintage style as Waverlys or Grover Sta-Tites. So they’re not straight drop-in replacements.

Twenty years ago that wouldn’t have bothered me and I would have gone ahead and replaced them myself, but I guess I must be getting tidier in my old age!

The Schertlers are an immense improvement over the stock tuners that came on the guitar, so I haven’t regretted pulling off the original gears for an instant.


Wade Hampton Miller
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Old 03-19-2020, 04:04 PM
Brucebubs Brucebubs is offline
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I discovered the hard way that there's an art to removing push-fit bushings without damaging the headstock - luckily for me it was an ultra cheap guitar I bought to teach myself some basic set-up skills.

So your luthier certainly had his work cut out with glued bushings, glad it worked out.
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Old 03-19-2020, 05:20 PM
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docwatsonfan docwatsonfan is offline
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I'm glad it worked out OP

I've had a lot of Eastman E series guitars with the stock open gear tuners

My experience is the bushings have all been loose and just fallen out on their own when I've changed tuners
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Old 03-20-2020, 07:39 PM
exterra1 exterra1 is offline
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Default What sort of improvement

Are the Gotoh tuners over the Pings that come in the OM20, I've had mine for four years and have never found a problem with the Pings, my guitar stays in tune, as long as the humidity doesn't jump up and down, they are very smooth with no looseness in the buttons, and they look great, using them is smooth. I also have a new AC722ce which came with the Gotohs and I really can't see the difference from one to the other as far as tuning the guitar. I've only played for five years, started at 68, and really don't have any friends that play so I haven't experienced a lot of different controls other than those on my own guitars. Will I see an improvement if I were to change them out?
Thanks
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Old 03-20-2020, 08:41 PM
tomcstokes59 tomcstokes59 is offline
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Default Eastman tuners

Quote:
Originally Posted by exterra1 View Post
Are the Gotoh tuners over the Pings that come in the OM20, I've had mine for four years and have never found a problem with the Pings, my guitar stays in tune, as long as the humidity doesn't jump up and down, they are very smooth with no looseness in the buttons, and they look great, using them is smooth. I also have a new AC722ce which came with the Gotohs and I really can't see the difference from one to the other as far as tuning the guitar. I've only played for five years, started at 68, and really don't have any friends that play so I haven't experienced a lot of different controls other than those on my own guitars. Will I see an improvement if I were to change them out?
Thanks
I have cycled through about 7 Eastman E series over the last three years not including the E10 00 which is a slot head. I changed out the tuners on 4 of the 7. Of the 4 three were changed out due to a significant tightness on the G & B strings. I did change out two for aesthetics as well as the tightness issue. The other three were fine and they turn easy and hold tune. Bottom line - I had a reason to change mine. If yours look great, turn easy and hold tune I can't think of a reason to change them out except aesthetics. On the ones I didn't change they worked great and I just left them. I changed out the E40OM because I like the look of Schaller GrandTunes with snake wood buttons. The original tuners worked fine but if memory serves Eastman uses Gotoh SE tuners on the E40OM and E40D guitars.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg E40 tuners front.jpg (39.5 KB, 184 views)
File Type: jpg E40 tuners back.jpg (38.1 KB, 185 views)

Last edited by tomcstokes59; 03-20-2020 at 11:22 PM. Reason: forgot a sentence
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Old 03-20-2020, 11:13 PM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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Exterra, the Ping tuners on my 2019 Eastman were pretty sloppy, well below the accuracy level that I want on guitars that I own. I suppose that I could have soldiered on and just put up with them, but I had a set of slightly used Schertlers that I already knew were much better tuners, so I wanted to use them instead. I also wanted to replace the truly crappy factory-original pickup with a better one, so I had my guitar repairman do both jobs for me.

From what I have seen and dealt with when it comes to open gear Pings, they’re pretty hit or miss. I’ve played some guitars that had them where they worked fine and there was no compelling reason to replace them, which is what you’ve experienced. Other examples, though, have made me want to yank them off immediately.

The Pings on the Eastman guitar that I bought weren’t horrible, but they were definitely mediocre, and since I had some much better tuners on hand that weren’t being used, to me it was an easy decision to make. I pulled off the Pings, replaced them with Schertlers and am glad that I did.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller
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Old 03-21-2020, 03:41 PM
Beakybird Beakybird is offline
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Regarding the Gotoh SE700 vs the stock Ping tuning machines, the Ping machines are 18:1 (what my eyes see) while the Gotoh are 15:1. Aren't you losing some precision with the change?

I think my Pings are just fine, but if I come across some inexpensive Schertler's (when times get better), I might bite - just to baby my Eastman.
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Old 03-21-2020, 11:12 PM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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Schertlers aren’t cheap, unfortunately. I had gotten mine in a trade with a guitarbuilder friend who needed a set of Gotoh 510 minis that I happened to have on hand. So I benefited from that lucky circumstance and got to try them without having to pay full retail for them.

I first put them on an Epiphone Masterbilt guitar I had. The Schertlers were so much better than the stock open gear Grovers that were on the Epi that I said:

“Whoa, these tuners are better than the guitar they’re on!”

So I took them off and put the Grovers back on, and just put aside the Schertlers until a guitar came along that I knew I’d want to keep. That turned out to be the Eastman, which is a superb instrument.

Honestly, I’ve owned guitars with all of the various brands of open gear tuners that are widely available, and the two very best sets that I’ve used are the excruciatingly expensive Rodgers tuners I had custom made for one of my mandolins, and these Schertlers. None of the others - which include Waverlys, Gotohs, Pings, both 14-1 and 18-1 Grover Sta-Tites and those Golden Era open gear tuners that StewMac markets - are as accurate or precise as the Rodgers and Schertler tuners.

Honestly, as a general rule, I don’t care much for vintage-style open gear tuners because they’re simply not as precise as properly adjusted sealed gear Gotoh 510’s. Yes, most of them look kind of groovy, in an Edwardian, steampunk kind of way. (“Where are my top hat and spats? Wait, I need my monocle, too!”) But in terms of pure functionality, they don’t match the precision of the sealed gear 510’s.

The Schertlers are an exception to that, and I find their clean modern visual aesthetics to be refreshing, as well.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller
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  #10  
Old 03-21-2020, 11:37 PM
Beakybird Beakybird is offline
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If anyone wants Schertler tuning machines like Wade has but in matte black, there's a great sale on Ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/223162534645. I'm not sure about that color on my E1SS-LTD though.
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Old 03-22-2020, 04:34 AM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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That’s the best price on them that I’ve ever seen, by a considerable margin.


whm
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Old 03-22-2020, 05:50 AM
Marshall Marshall is offline
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I changed tuners on my Eastman E1SS LTD, not becasue they didn't work, but becasue I wanted more authentic Gibson looking ivory buttons. I found a set of individual Kluson type tuners on ebay. Pretty cheap. I couldn't use my usual 3-on-a-rail, because the Eastman spacing tween pegs isn't an american standard dimension. But the individual tuners did the trick. I didn't change the bushings.

The new tuners work like a charm and look great. The swap-out was easy.
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Old 03-22-2020, 10:58 PM
5th Element 5th Element is offline
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I replaced the awful stock tuners on my Alvarez Blues51 with Gotoh SXN510Vs. They had to be ordered directly from Gotoh (made to order), and they cost nearly double the SE700s. I like the Pings in my '11 E10OM better. The Gotohs are stiff and show no signs of breaking in over two years later.
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Old 03-25-2020, 08:29 PM
55tele 55tele is offline
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Tomcstokes59

Did u have to replace the bushings to use the Gran Tunes?
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