Hey there all you grizzled veterans:
When tuning my 90 year old guitar with the original Grotoh tuners it feels to me (a nube) that I have to torque the tuner harder than I should have to (compared to newer guitars).
What are your experiences with caring for/lubricating open backed tuners?
Care to share any stories with “dos” and/or “for pity’s sake, don’t do this!”
I own a 79 year old Gibson with open back tuners so do have experience with old Gibsons.
Make sure none of the tuner shaft are bent. This can make them harder to turn.
You don’t need to remove the strings unless the tuners are really hard to turn. Just loosen them enough to lubricate them after cleaning.
Cleaning them the way the people cleaned them for the last 100 years. Use Naphtha(lighter fluid) to get rid of old lubricant and dirt.
To lubricate them once they’re clean use any good lub. Sewing Machine oil or even Vaseline
I’m sure there are fancy expensive products on the market these days but your father-in-law did have them and the guitar has survived the last 90 year just fine.
Rotate the tuners clean any excess lub and tune up the guitar.
The way I see it is musical instruments have been around since the first ape hit a hollow log with a rock and though that sounds cool and started the first Rock band.
I think it was called the Rolling Stones some of the founding members are still alive.
Kidding aside, most of the products on the market today aren’t made to make things better they’re made to separate you from your money. Most aren’t even new products they’re just repackages and rebranded and cost more.
It’s only been in the last 20 or so years that every job need special product.
Naphtha has been used on Nito finished guitars and their components as a cleaner for over a century and has never done any harm. Just don’t smoke when using it, one of it’s uses is the fluid in Zippo Lighters.
Bob Taylor the founder of Taylor Guitars recommends Turtle Wax(the stuff you use on your car) to polish the poly finish Taylor uses on their guitars. So no fancy product there either even though Taylor sells their own Guitar Polish. It’s probably just over priced Turtle.
Have fun cleaning up your tuners. There are lots of videos on youtube on how to take the tuners apart if you need to straighten any of them. If you need help or are not sure let me know and I’ll help you out.
I always use the one with the carnauba wax in 'em. Car always shines like new, even though it’s 13y old by now.
I’m going to give that a go on a guitar of mine, as soon as i’ve ran out of dunlop cleaning / waxing products.
I think I’m going to be buying a resonator soon, and the one I like has open tuners, so this is timely.
I’m sure I’d use whatever I have on hand. good chance I’d use the blow gun attachment on my air compressor to get any gunk out and whatever bicycle chain lube I have. I’d only need a drop or so, anyway. I’ve taken to using wax-based chain lube, anyway, and my bicycle chain has never been cleaner. something like that would help keep any debris from accumulating in the mechanism in the first place, reducing the need to blow anything out.
My resonator guitar has open-geared classical-style tuners, and, admittedly, they are not the best quality. However, cleaning the gears with naptha (lighter fluid) then using a small brush to apply some shotgun grease onto the gears and where the shafts pass through the headtock made them much smoother.
The shotgun grease is nice because it’s thick enough to stay in place, thin enough to get it into all the nooks & crannies, and it shouldn’t affect the wood, since it’s made to use on shotguns with wood stocks and foregrips.
I use graphite powder as a lubricant on my open tuners. It doesn’t attract dirt like oil does. Had a set of open tuners that were getting quite grungy to turn, took them apart and cleaned followed by graphite powder and it was like a new guitar.
See? That’s why I enquire of grizzled veterans!
I’d forgotten about the special attention to the Nitrocellulose finish, and I’m already freighted up on Naphtha (for my winter pocket warmers) and grease. A more perfect phrase was never said for our times beyond that spoken by Deep Throat of Watergate fame: follow the money
