Fixing/changing crumpled tuners?

Gear & Tools Talk 🎸 Guitars, Instruments & Maintenance
1

Hi,

I’ve had my Fender Sonoran for some years and now one of the tuners has stated to fall apart.

Can I repair just this key? It seems to be only the plastics that are broken. Just adding new plastics would be great! (I do have access to a 3d printer, although I suspect the white might look off.)

I went to my local guitar store and said I wanted to replace my tuners but they said they don’t carry Fender (hard for a small store). Can I replace with tuners of another brand? What to look for? And how do I find the name of the original part? (Fender’s part page was not that easy to navigate…)

(New user limit forces me to only post one image. EDIT: The limit was lifted after I read the welcome message from discobot. All images now in this post.)

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5

quick search on google
Like these

or these

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6

Replacing the tuners is a relatively straight forward job. Ideally ensure the new tuners have exact same screw placement.

7

You could have a go at fixing it, watch this and you will get the idea!

Alternatively

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8

Darrell

We must be getting similar feeds. How do fancy a Loctite Strat.
100 litres of SuperGlue 10 kg of Baking Powder and one of these
image

Oh and lots of sandpaper !
:rofl:

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9

I suddenly feel the tremendous urge to make a lot of useless stuff :roll_eyes:… which you really just have to buy in a store :smile:, … but I do see the profit in it for just that one thing that is no longer availeble or have to come all the way from China, … I have looked at this handyman with great pleasure ,

And Welcome Thomas,…have fun here ,and with shopping :grin:
PS:Just showing the head with the tuners on a site for guitar addicts is a bit brutal,… :wink:
Greetings,Rogier

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10

I’ve just ordered a boxful just in case !!
:rofl:

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11

If you live in China you can replace China with the Netherlands or something in this sense… :laughing:,…

I am now going to make myself useful now and buy a bird feeder house for the approaching winter,…and it looks cute in the garden,… :bird: :dove: :owl: :hatching_chick:

12

:see_no_evil: :see_no_evil:… :speak_no_evil: :upside_down_face:

:joy:

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13

Thanks for all the answers!

Seems like I have three options:

  • New tuners
  • New tuner knobs (Mekanikknapp in Swedish?)
  • Fill/fix the knob with superglue + baking powder.

And wow, regarding the superglue + baking powder, I thought “how strong can it be?”, but it looks to be pretty strong from the video! I might try that.

14

It looks awful and I should probably have been more thorough with the masking tape :stuck_out_tongue: . And the stuff builds fast! Had to do a lot of filing…

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I’ll wait 24 hours and then hope it’s fully cured.

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15

That’s pretty cool Thomas, great job !
:sunglasses:

16

Thats a cool fix, bit o sanding should be good I hope!

17

Excellent, just sand the excess off now and maybe try some white nail varnish to get the colour better!

18

I think it would make a back breaker of a guitar!
:joy::joy::joy:

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19

Good for hard rock !

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20

That’s amazing. I’ve used fibreglass resin around the house for similar small repairs (not on guitars) with varying levels of success. This seems a much more controllable, and cheaper, process!

21

Just found this video / article, you may find it useful:

1 Like