Fancy Tuners - Graf vs. Alessi vs. Rodgers

[jt1]

In addition to the wonderful tuners already mentioned in this thread, I recommend the Blazer and Henkes tuners. These guys somehow got a hold of the original molds for the defintive examples of vintage Kluson and Grover tuners. Here is my 1917 Dyer Symphony Harp Guitar, bearing the B&H "Grover" tuners of the era:

[Howard Klepper]

I just looked at Waverly, Schaller Grand Tune, Schertler, and open Gotoh 510 tuners in my shop. All have the worm wheel cut to envelope the worm screw. Photos show that Alessi and Gilbert do this, too.

So it looks like there is nothing unique about Graf making enveloping worm gears. The question is why Rodgers and Robson apparently do not.

[Brad Goodman]

Originally Posted by jt1

In addition to the wonderful tuners already mentioned in this thread, I recommend the Blazer and Henkes tuners. These guys somehow got a hold of the original molds for the defintive examples of vintage Kluson and Grover tuners. Here is my 1917 Dyer Symphony Harp Guitar, bearing the B&H "Grover" tuners of the era:

These tuners appear to be the same as the Stew Mac Golden Age restoration tuners...... (maybe with different knobs)

I use them on my Stella repro guitars.

They are OK but not in the class of the other tuners mentioned in this thread

[jt1]

Originally Posted by Brad Goodman

These tuners appear to be the same as the Stew Mac Golden Age restoration tuners...... (maybe with different knobs)

I use them on my Stella repro guitars.

They are OK but not in the class of the other tuners mentioned in this thread

No, these are the Antique Acoustics tuners, which as I posted, are built by Blazer and Henkes. They are a product very different from those Golden Age tuners.

I also like Waverly 3-on-a-plate, which I installed in the guitar that I built, and which have the benefit of being less expensive than the Antique Acoustics:



I've also got Waverly's on my two other, modern guitars:

[Burton LeGeyt]

Originally Posted by Howard Klepper

I just looked at Waverly, Schaller Grand Tune, Schertler, and open Gotoh 510 tuners in my shop. All have the worm wheel cut to envelope the worm screw. Photos show that Alessi and Gilbert do this, too.

So it looks like there is nothing unique about Graf making enveloping worm gears. The question is why Rodgers and Robson apparently do not.

Howard and I have continued a discussion about these gears offline but I think we have agreed that we were meaning different things by the term "enveloping" and that the gears Graf is using are, in fact, different from the gears on most other makers' machines.

I know Joel thinks very highly of them!

[snakehips]

Hi there !

I’m not a luthier but I wanted a better set of tuners to replace the Stewmac Golden Restoration set, on my Brad Goodman Midnight Special.

I found the Rubner brand, after vast online research, and contacted them, to then find out Brad Goodman actually uses this brand sometimes, ha.ha ! (I could have saved myself lots of time in research and asked Brad directly !!).

Anyway, Rubner seemed to perhaps be owned by a company in the US, as all my correspondance was with a US guy, but the tuners are actually made in the original factory, in Germany.

They were quite happy to make what I was asking for, which was a set for a slotted headstock 12-string guitar, but with more vintage-looking plain rectangular plates.

I have Waverly tuners on some guitars, but these work just as well for my 12-string guitar, and feel just as high quality.

Pictures to follow.

[Jabberwocky]

http://www.rubner-markneukirchen.de

[snakehips]

Hi again !

As promised, here is a picture of my Rubner 12-string tuners, with simple rectangular plates, on my cool Brad Goodman “Midnight Special” guitar :




The whole guitar :

[jmagill]

Does anyone have a price comparison of the high-end tuners discussed here: Alessi, Rodgers, Graf, Rubner, Robson, et al.?

[runamuck]

Originally Posted by Howard Klepper

Most of the high-end tuners have a Baroque design that to my eye is not at all suited to a steel-string guitar. Rodgers can be simplified enough to work aesthetically.

I agree with Howard. Many of these designs are, while beautiful, not related to our age.

[mercy]

I love the look of modern style tuners and dont like the Waverly look alikes. I had a set of Schertlers on a guitar which while looking great didnt function well. Id be interested in trying a set of the tuners mentioned here but I dont want to spend more than $150 so Im guessing they will be more expensive than I want to spend.