Schertler Versus Waverly Tuners on High End Builds

[M Hayden]

I’ve not had issues with Waverly tuners over the twentysomething years I’ve used them. That’s not to say they can’t or won’t have issues, just that I haven’t experienced them.

On instruments converted from a sealed tuner to an open back, I've used the Gotoh SXN510V, which uses a screw-in bushing design while maintaining an open-back appearance. Other than being a bit more tarnish-prone than other tuners, they work great.

Now I’m curious about some of the others mentioned here...GrandTunes and so forth. I’ve looked their dimensions up and they all vary a little - you’d think that there’d be a standard for mounting hole spacing and shaft-center to mounting hole dimensions.

[BrunoBlack]

Most of my guitars have Waverly tuners and while I haven’t had any serious problems, there have been inconsistencies with tightness on some guitars. I recently purchased a guitar that came with Schaller Grandtune tuners. This has been my first exposure to these tuners and they are fantastic. They look nice imo, operate smoothly and are consistent from post to post. If they work like this over the long haul — I’m sold.

[SprintBob]

Originally Posted by Haasome

Most of my guitars have Waverly tuners and while I haven’t had any serious problems, there have been inconsistencies with tightness on some guitars. I recently purchased a guitar that came with Schaller Grandtune tuners. This has been my first exposure to these tuners and they are fantastic. They look nice imo, operate smoothly and are consistent from post to post. If they work like this over the long haul — I’m sold.

The Schaller open back GrandTunes are beautiful. I might lean towards them rather than the Schertlers going forward.

[SprintBob]

Follow up here. Received my new Froggy Bottom H-12 with the flat black Schertler tuners and I am totally happy with my decision to use them. The guys at Froggy Bottom were also impressed by the results. The flat back and gold of the tuners look fantastic with the guitar and they operate like “buttah”. It’s a joy to tune with them, they never feel tight or binding and they seem very accurate and repeatable.

I have two guitars with these tuners and will have four with Gotoh 510’s when I receive my Kostal OMC later this coming summer. My Doerr Trinity, Emerald X-20, and Rainsong APSLE have the Gotoh’s also.

[brianlcox]

Glad you like them Bob! I asked the guys at Froggy Bottom to put the new high ratio Waverlies on mine. I will let you know how I like them when the guitar arrives.

[B....]

Originally Posted by Bruce Sexauer

I identified the problem with Waverlys years ago and was not taken seriously by StewMac, which queered the deal for me. They told me I was the only one who ever mentioned this being the problem.

The problem is that the ferules are machined too loosely on the shafts. This means that if one used their bespoke tool fo installation, the tuner shaft and the ferule are perfectly concentric. But because the ferule has several thousandth " of play against the shaft, the string tension pulls the shaft forward which caused the driven get to bind against the worm gear. So, when there is no tension on the string, everything seems fine, but as the string comes to tension the gear becomes increasingly tight, often to the point of being completely bound up. It's not so bad with the butter bean knobs, but with the smaller wood knobs there can be inadequate leverage for my fragile musician's hands.

Schaller's machining is to much closer tolerances, and with a bit of attention the issue rarely comes up, although if not considered it is possible to install them improperly and get the same affect.

Because of the bearing built into the base plate, Schertler will probably never have this problem.

Thanks for this Bruce.
I may look into the Schertler tuners to replace the Waverly. Can I simply drop-in replace? Please advise. Thanks.

[Bruce Sexauer]

The Schertlers require a 10mm hole right through, and while I have never thought to compare, I seriously doubt the screw holes are compatible with anything else. They are currently my favorite affordable tuner, but they are not comparable with the vintage vibe.

The Schaller GrandTune, on the other hand, will directly replace the Waverly, though you will have to change the ferrules as the shafts are different diameters.

I have started using Waverly tuners again. Understanding their idiosyncrasies makes their installation much more reliable.

[B....]

Originally Posted by Bruce Sexauer

The Schertlers require a 10mm hole right through, and while I have never thought to compare, I seriously doubt the screw holes are compatible with anything else. They are currently my favorite affordable tuner, but they are not comparable with the vintage vibe.

The Schaller GrandTune, on the other hand, will directly replace the Waverly, though you will have to change the ferrules as the shafts are different diameters.

I have started using Waverly tuners again. Understanding their idiosyncrasies makes their installation much more reliable.

I think I'll try the new 21:1 high ratio Waverly tuners. Thanks for your reply.

[Dave Higham]

I bought a set of Schertlers from Stewmac a while ago for a guitar I’ve just finished. I drilled perfect, clean 10mm holes using a brand new 10mm drill. I pressed the ferrules in on a drill press with no problems, but none of the bosses on the tuners would fit into the other end of the holes.
I measured carefully and the holes are dead-on 10mm. The bosses on the tuners vary from 10.1 to 10.3mm. Stewmac says you need a 10mm (13/32”) drill. If you use a 13/32” drill you should be fine because 13/32” isn’t 10mm. It’s 10.3mm! I’m in France, so finding a 13/32” drill here is like looking for unicorn manure. I solved my problem by making the drill run off-centre enough to enlarge the holes so the tuners would fit, but I don’t want to do that again, so perhaps I won’t be using Schertlers again.
Have any of you real luthiers had this problem (I’m just a hobby builder)? I suppose, as you’re mostly in the US, you don’t use 10mm drills.

[Bruce Sexauer]

I use a 10mm drill, relieve the ends of the holes with a countersink, and press in the ferrules and then the tuners. They are tight, but they go. The relief is because if I have to pull them out they can damage the head plates (both sides on my work, usually).

[Sasquatchian]

I put a set of 16:1 Waverly's on my 00-17 about 8 years ago and that set seems to live up to the Waveriy reputation, or at least the reputation implied by some of their more famous endorsees. I have two sets of the new Waverly 21:1 tuners, one on a Gibson and the other on the 000-18. When I installed the first set they were like someone above described - y'know - a quarter turn before anything happened. Called Stew-Mac and they went on and on about how hyper sensitive their tuners were because of the extraordinary precision with which they were made and that I needed to fill the existing holes and use their little install drilling tool.

I bought that tool, filled the screw holes with tiny little mahogany hand made toothpicks and reinstalled the tuners. Ok. Much better without the ton of backlash but still not really that great. There was still backlash on a few of the strings and as Mr. Sexauer mentioned, there's definitely excessive play between the shaft and the bushing. It may be, because there's still a little wiggle room between the mounting plate and the screws, that loosening the screws and cheating the plate toward the nut will fix it.

I still think the Waverly's are leagues ahead of Grover Sta-Tites but they're not nearly what they are advertised to be. I also have the Gotoh Mini 510's on both my Goodall and my weird Tele copy. Those are like having power steering with zero backlash and amazing precision and some of the most beautiful tuners I've ever seen. At this point I would not buy Waverly's again but I would like to try the open back Gotoh's.

[inc0herent]

Originally Posted by Sasquatchian

I have two sets of the new Waverly 21:1 tuners, one on a Gibson and the other on the 000-18. When I installed the first set they were like someone above described - y'know - a quarter turn before anything happened. Called Stew-Mac and they went on and on about how hyper sensitive their tuners were because of the extraordinary precision with which they were made and that I needed to fill the existing holes and use their little install drilling tool.

I bought that tool, filled the screw holes with tiny little mahogany hand made toothpicks and reinstalled the tuners. Ok. Much better without the ton of backlash but still not really that great. There was still backlash on a few of the strings and as Mr. Sexauer mentioned, there's definitely excessive play between the shaft and the bushing. It may be, because there's still a little wiggle room between the mounting plate and the screws, that loosening the screws and cheating the plate toward the nut will fix it.
.

I appreciate the 1st hand review of the 21:1 ratio Waverlys. I was considering replacing the older, inconsistent 16:1 sets on my Dreads in the hope that they would be an improvement. Doesn't sound like it

I like Waverlys just fine but it's a bummer that they don't seem to be as consistently great as Gotoh 510's which seem to be the gold standard performance wise.

I've got a set of Schertlers on a new build arriving next week. Looking forward to seeing how they stack up.

[Sasquatchian]

Originally Posted by inc0herent

I appreciate the 1st hand review of the 21:1 ratio Waverlys. I was considering replacing the older, inconsistent 16:1 sets on my Dreads in the hope that they would be an improvement. Doesn't sound like it

I like Waverlys just fine but it's a bummer that they don't seem to be as consistently great as Gotoh 510's which seem to be the gold standard performance wise.

I've got a set of Schertlers on a new build arriving next week. Looking forward to seeing how they stack up.

Honestly, when I replaced a set of the 16:1's with the 21:1's, I could barely tell a difference in how accurate they felt. You'd have thought there'd be a really noticeable difference. It's weird. I want to love them or even like them and yet I just feel, well, indifferent.

[B....]

I have a set of the 21:1 ratio Waverlys ordered to replace the 16:1 set on my Preston Thompson Dreadnought. I'm confident the mounting screw holes are located accurately on that guitar to minimize potential gear binding so I'll post an assessment after I test their functioning. The issue I have with the lower ratio is that it's very difficult to smoothly approach a stationary strobe tuning without going past it & having to repeat a number of attempts. With a long scale guitar the desired pitch requires higher string tension & therefore stiffer tuning action than on a short scale guitar. THIS is the problem for me. With higher gear ratio I'm hoping the approach to a desired tuning note will be smoother due to a longer turn to achieve the same (& slower) gain in frequency. This of course providing that there is no binding of the gearing to deal with.

[Itzkinguitars]

Originally Posted by Simon Fay

I have never been too impressed with either Schertlers or Waverly tuners. The Schertlers look a bit cheap (same issue with most Gotoh products) and the Waverlys look nice but are often hard to turn. Functionally, I do agree that the Schertlers and Gotoh open back seem better than the Waverlys I have used.

That said, I strongly recommend considering Alessi tuners. Nicolo Alessi is a single man operation and builds a high-end product at a reasonable price. They aren't quite Rodgers or Graf level but they aren't nearly as expensive either. IMO, they are a noticeable step up from the other tuner options mentioned in this thread -- very smooth and very accurate.

I think of schertler as the wish.com version of alessi haha

I just recently bought a few sets of machine heads from Kris Barnett in Berlin, just like his guitars he’s gone completely overboard designing and engineering them (6 bearings per string). They’re smoother and more accurate than the alessi, rodgers, and scheller I’ve used and installed, significantly cheaper, and offer quite a bit of customization. They’re not yet officially on the market but Kris mentioned he’s thinking of offering steel string versions at some point. I think the reasonable cost and ultra high quality would be a game changer for the steel string machine head market