Locking Tuner Install

Hi, I'm Mike Sullivan. Welcome to Guitar Tech. How to do it yourself. Hello Gospel Guitarist here. I finally ordered my Grover locking tuners which are exactly identical to the Grovers that are on the back of my headstock. On this, once again, the C1EA model here by Schecter. I've been wanting to do this for a while and so I thought I'd make a video of the install even though it's really a pretty simple thing. I just thought I'd go over the little points just to make sure that people don't you know, they can just see how easy it is to install these. You've only got one screw and then the nut to deal with. On this model, on this guitar, I didn't want to mar it at all so I bought the Grovers to replace the Grovers. Because the screws on the back will, I won't have any more let me flip it over here. I won't have any new holes back here on the headstock. You know, some of the some of them, the angle where this piece is comes down like this so I'd have a new hole and it would leave a hole open. Or if I used the spurts holes they don't even use a screw so you'd see six holes in the back of the headstock. I'm just being picky here and I thought I'd do exactly the same company to replace what was originally on it. So all you need for this job is a number ten wrench to handle the nut on the front and a Phillips screwdriver here to handle the screws on the back. So let's get started. The first thing I'm going to do is flip over the guitar. I'm not going to remove the screws yet. I think if you, first I've got to remove the strings. That would be helpful. Because I'm putting on locking tuners I don't need all the extra winds so I should be able to use the same set of strings if I'm careful about removing the strings. I can restring it using these strings and then just snip off the extra string because the locking tuner don't need all that on the end. So these are going to be plenty long enough to continue their service without replacing the string set. So I'm going to go ahead and do that. But first what I was going to say was if you remove the screws on the back first when you go to loosen the nut on the front the whole tuning assembly could start spinning on you. So if you have a screw still installed back there it just kind of holds it together for you while you're taking these things off. It just kind of makes the job easier. And when I put them back on when I do the install I would put the nuts on but just very loosely and then secure the screws and then I would tighten up the nuts. Okay, I got the strings off cleanly. One thing about taking the strings off, if you want to reuse them it's best to use one hand to keep some tension on the string because then as it unwinds from the post it won't just curl up on you but it'll start to straighten out a little bit. It'll still be curly but it'll be easier to handle to put it back on. So here now next step would be to loosen these nuts and get started on the removal process. I suggest using these because even this type can slip off and scratch your guitar so it doesn't take much to get these started. You can do the rest with your finger and so you can see here what you have is you've got this part which is the nut which comes off and then this loose washer here. Usually you've got to flip the guitar over. I have no fingernails for this so I'll flip the guitar over. So that's all you need to do to get the nut off and then once you take the screw off on the back which you'll see in a moment we'll remove the tuner. Okay we've flipped the guitar over and we have removed the little itty bitty can you see that? little tiny screws that are used to hold these on and uh... the washer part fell off when I flipped the guitar over so you want to just kind of keep those together so you don't lose them. And then this just lifts right out. Blow the dust out of there. So I don't know what the diameter of the hole is on this particular model but if you're going to replace your tuning keys sometimes like if you have the older Klunsen style tuning keys they may have a skinnier post and you might have to get a tool to ream this hole out to a larger size. I generally try to stick with the same type or size. And these tuners here uh... I'm going to use these on a Takamine model acoustic that I have uh... because it's got kind of a gold it's a lower end Takamine but I like the guitar's tone a lot. And the tuners on it are fine but I might as well make use of these good tuners here too and these are a step up from what's on it I think so that's where these will be going. So now I'll install one of these. Okay so now I've got these unpackaged as you can see uh... in the photos when you look online it kind of tricked me because they look identical to the ones that don't have a lock on them. When you turn them sideways there's your this is what turns right here. So it looks kind of tricky when you look at the photos online or just glance at them like that they don't even look like locking tuners but they are. But you can see that they look a lot like the ones that are already on there. So but they're the same size so this will drop right in there. uh... And the holes will line up and everything will be good to go. So we can just take a screw out of the package here that came with it and put the screw in there and get the screw started. Okay At this point I would screw this in uh... but I won't tighten it all the way down. uh... I want it because this can move a little bit until I get the uh... the other side in. So I'll turn this over and we can take one of the one of the nuts that came with it and that slips in. Oops, I forgot something. Don't want to forget things. We want to get a washer. Uh... apparently these washers have a flat side and a slightly fancier side. So make sure the fancier side is up because that will look nicer. It's also flush. I think you'll notice that if you put it on upside down. And just like when I took them off by hand I like to put them on by hand. Just kind of hand snug it there. And that's it. Then just tighten up everything and your install is finished. So that's it for a quick tutorial on replacing stock tuner keys and upgrading them to locking tuning keys. It doesn't matter what brand you use, same procedure anyway. Most all of them have the screws to remove. A screw and a nut, that's it. Unless it's shallower they don't even have the screw. I hope that just kind of alleviates your weariness of maybe doing something like this. Like I said earlier you can always use the old parts on another guitar you have laying around that might need better tuners on it. I just kind of like the feel and the ability of the Grovers so I'm going to put them on my Takamine now. Okay, strings are installed. And one thing I wanted to mention was that when you use locking guitar tuners you can see here, let me get it lined up. The string doesn't even go all the way around one time on any of them. You can see over there the strings are connected. But this is what they look like on the other side, nothing. They don't even go all the way around. So don't think that you need a lot of extra string or you got to make the normal wraps. That's what make these tuners so good. This guitar seems to, I don't know what it does, but it just seems like it plays better. It just seems like the vibrations go right into the guitar neck better. It just feels better. I was just playing it and it just it's got a little bit more jump. I guess that might just be the binding of the string to the wood. Without all those extra windings on there. It makes it a little bit more accurate maybe. I don't know. I'm not going to play theorist with it, but I just I think it sounds better. I think it plays better. Most people I just figured that it would just string up better. That's what I was expecting. But it does seem to it comes in tune really fast when you're tuning. I'm still getting used to that with these tuners. But they're nice. I like them. I recommend if you have a guitar with the Grover tuners that you upgrade to the Grover lockers. I think I paid seventy dollars for these. So they're somewhere in there. So that completes the install on the Grover locking tuners. I highly recommend them. Thanks for watching. Well, thanks for watching. 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