Steinberger Gearless Tuners

I used these tuners in a headless conversion. The plastic washers that come with them appear to be something like glass filled nylon. When approaching pitch, and especially on the wound strings, the tuners were hard to turn and have a lot of stick-slip friction. For applications where you can really grab each knob, it may not be as much of an issue, but for my application where the tuners are in a shallow cavity through the body of the guitar, smoother operation is preferred. To solve this, I made a set of Teflon washers to stack on top of the nylon washers, and that made a huge difference in the smoothness of tuning. I am not sure why anyone would use these tuners in a solidbody electric guitar, as there are so many good options for locking tuners that have a high accuracy. On the E and B strings, I usually have to do the tuning operation twice, due to string stretch. For banjos and 'unique' creations, though, these tuners are really cool and effective. For instance, I really enjoy the feel of a headless guitar, with the tuners located behind the bridge. It makes for a very well balanced instrument. The pictured TOM-style guitar has been chambered, and weighs a svelte 5.8 lbs. You can hardly feel that weight over your shoulder, and the neck does not 'dive' at all.

Rachetées à un utilisateur (Gibson Firebird) et montées sur une Samick FA2 Greg Bennett, plus de sustain, accord qui tient parfaitement.

I recently found a Gibson Firebird reissue. Love it but it didn't stay in tune. One o' my friends suggested Steinberger Tuners. Got em in Black. Well they were easy to install but The accuracy of these puppy's is awesome. And you can change your strings in like 5 minutes. Love these suckers. Best move I made for my beloved firebird.

Great tuners! For over 20 years I have played Irish tenor banjo tuned like a violin GDAE and always had problems tuning due to the very fine tolerances and gearing ratio of standard banjo tuners. I am also a guitarist and I teach Irish fiddle professionally here in Melbourne Australia. No problem tuning these but tenor banjo with standard pegs always was difficult before I discovered Steinbergers. My dream came true when I purchased an old Vega tenor that had been fitted with Steinberger tuners. I searched around and was told Stewart McDonald sold the tuners I was looking for. These are the next generation of banjo tuners. Buy them now and get them fitted. You will love them.

I successfully ordered 2 x set of these wonderful Steinberger Gearless "banjo style" Tuners for my two (2 x) Gibson Firebird V guitars (1995 and 2002 models) from Stewmac.

These Steinberger Gearless "banjo style" Tuners are excellent replacement for the original Gibson banjo style tuners found on the reissue Gibson Firebirds V's.

I replaced the original Gibson banjo tuners because several of the tuners on both Firebirds seemed to have their internal gears possible stopped and could not be fixed. I found that the tuners tha worked seed to be sloppy at best maybe due to wear and tear over the years.

I also found that the original Gibson banjo style tuners became very very hard to to tune exactly even after some time worked on by a professional luthier.

Ordering, shipment and receipt from Stewmac: very fast, efficient and easy. The Steinberger Gearless "banjo style" Tuners arrived within 3 days here in Hong Kong. Excellent indeed.

Implementation: Steinberger Gearless "banjo style" Tuners are very easy to fit. Just need a 8mm socket to the existing tuner holes in my Gibson Firebird V's.. no pressure worked great.

WARNING: make sure you R.T.F.M (read the ) excellent documentation from Stewmac before you go ahead. DONT try and disassemble the tuners!!

Workflow: very very fast to replace a string. Simply after feeding through the bridge , pull string through the tuner hole as tight as you can with your hand. No need for pilers BTW. The use the coarse 'T" clamp to lock it down. Use finger tight only. it will not slip at all. The finally use the finger thumb wheel under the tuner to fine tune it. Its so easy!

Coolness:
a) very fast to replace a string
b) very fast to tune compared to legacy tuner types
c) no need to "guestimate"/allow the length of string for wrap because there NO wrapping!
d) very fine tuning because of the high ratio 35:1 (?) compared to the legacy tuners 5:1
e) they look so cool too! (I have chrome ones)
f) they are very strong and tough and will not ever need replacing and won't wear as far as I can see.
g) very good if you change strings a lot. Luckily I use D'A EXP's and they last a lot longer than the non coated ones for me!
h) excellent for constantly changing tunings (open for example).. very very quick

Warnings:
a) NEVER/DONT try and pull the tuner apart (the centre and the stem). These are press fitted. Sure you can pull them apart but they may not be so easy to use after you do this.. so just dont. There's no need
b) watch out that you DONT LOSE the TEFLON bush (washer) used between the fine adjustment and the tuner. The tuner will become rather unusable. I think a tiny bit of adhesive on the static side by7 Steinberger would have fixed this.. please take note.

Summary:
- highly recommended by me for replacement of ye old legacy Gibson Banjo Tuners for the Firebird V series and you're not a stickler for "original parts" . (same for other I imagine)
- very very good service from STEWMAC to me here in Hong Kong.

Keep up the good work Stewmac!!

Best value for money... once these babys went onto my Tele it gave it a fresh new look, easy to instal and very accurate on the tunning... Thanks to the team at Stewmac for great service and delivery.

In studying the various options to repair the broken headstock on my SG, I decided to make it into a headless, using 3 of these tuners along with 3 of the originals. There was a small learning curve to make these tuners work, due to no instructions whatsoever (my only complaint as a first time user). I noticed that "Not Ready For Prime TIme" (who gave a 1-star review) had the same problems I did, but sadly, he didn't notice the set-screw adjustment to fix that problem. After a bit of messing around, I was able to make the necessary adjustments. It's now a one-of-a-kind SG, and I love it!! The cost of the total fix was less than 15% of neck replacement, and I never have to worry about breaking the headstock again!!! I received the set with one tuner missing the alignment pin. Stewmac was very helpful, and sent another right away. Granted, I was only using 3 of them, but now, I can do a fix like this for some other unlucky Gibson owner.

I've used these tuners exclusively on my builds for over three years now. Everyone who tries them, wants them on their guitars. At last, accurate, stable tuning!

If your high strings slip,you can adjust the clamping knob. Loosen the set screw on the knob and back it off 1 or 2 turns, re-tighten the set screw. This info is not in the instructions.

Light, extremely accurate, very classy on my Firebird... I don't regret!