Golden Age Tuner Hole Relocation

Tony Lewis Skypilot Guitar Repair

Golden Age Tuner Hole Relocation

A woman brings in a guitar from 1933. Ok, yes the guitar is cool because it’s a neat antique thing but for me it’s more about the time and place it represents: America is just coming out of the Great Depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is sworn in as the 32 pres and gives us “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. Albert Einstein arrives fleeing Nazi Germany. But!…and most importantly, Gene Wilder was born this year.

So you sit and wonder about the people who built this thing laying before you on the bench. What were they like? Happy to have jobs during the Depression, thus happy in their work? Because Wow! What a year……And this guitar represents things of possible interest to guitar people. I do some research. Gibson apparently used this model, an affordable guitar coming in at around 25. to possibly experiment with incorporating Martin like designs, probably as a test to see if they would be cost effective. The guitar, though inexpensive, has x bracing (a feature added in 1928 according to Mark Stutman of Folkway Music ), quality woods and is well built. The guitar is a Gibson L-00.

Now from the macro to the micro. It’s my job to make it playable. It’s a daily driver. And to make it playable it needs new tuners. I turn to Stewmac and look and find the Golden Age Tuners. Made for the L-00 and other pre-war models…..Perfect!

When they came I excitedly rushed them out to the shop and put them on the peg head only to find that the screw holes didn’t line up. Of course not. How could anyone come up with universal hole placement for every different tuner for every different year? Understandable! Now this guitar is all original and the peghead is in great shape. Original tuners whose screw holes aren’t stripped. No way I was going to pepper the peghead with more holes. So, the obvious was to pepper the retro tuners with new holes. And try to make it look decent. Past metal working experience comes to play. I will try two different techniques, solder on one set, and welding on the other. And in the end (“the love you take……) I used both

I know from the past that welding steel onto steel gives the best results for finish, but that soldering is an easier, and I think acceptable choice as well. I spot welded the holes shut on one set and soldered them shut on the other (see pic). I then filed and sanded both to a 400 grit finish. One of the welded holes had a couple of small voids and I filled those with solder. The process for both is as follows: Soldering the holes shut is easy. You can use your soldering iron. It should be 60w or higher. I used my Weller. Use muriatic acid to etch the metal, then use flux core electrical solder to fill holes. To weld, I used my Lincoln mig (see photo for settings). Just pop the trigger to spot weld on both sides. I cut a shield out of sheet metal to keep peg heads from getting splattered (see photo). You can then etch the metal with muriatic acid after finishing which will turn it a gray dull matte finish. As a last thought to Stewmac: Would it be possible to manufacture a blank option of tuners? That way the installer could drill hole placement and make them an universal option.