Ez Lok Conversion

[Mickguard]

Just in case anyone else was wondering about this one...

I tried converting a tuner to the Wilkinson EZ Lok design. Took one of my 'test tuners' --i.e., broken POS plastic thingamajig from a crappy old yard sale guitar.

Well, it took all of two minutes to 'convert' it. Really, it's pretty easy.

The biggest difficulty is getting the hole accurate --I was just playing around with a hand-held mini-drill today. But if/when I do this for real, I'll use a vise and a drill press.

There's enough space on the shaft to get the second hole sufficiently lower than the original hole, so I don't think there will be any issues with loss of strength. I'll test that too though --I'll install the tuner on a plank of wood, string it up and start turning....

But I think that if I can succeed in drilling the second hole in the shape of a V or U, then that will moot the strength question --an angled hole will leave plenty of meat left in the shaft.

I know, a lot of you are scratching your heads as to why I would even bother with this...it's mostly because I think the Wilkinson idea is really nice--a simple and uncomplicated approach to the problem.

[soapbarstrat]

The only thing making me scratch my head is not finding any useful photos to show me what the deal is. But I do have a set of Sperzel sound-lock tuners, so if it's the same design, I should stop whining.

[RAI6]

...plenty of meat left in the shaft.

[soapbarstrat]

I'm so glad we can entertain the 8 year olds

[Mickguard]

The only thing making me scratch my head is not finding any useful photos to show me what the deal is. But I do have a set of Sperzel sound-lock tuners, so if it's the same design, I should stop whining.

←

Here's a link

He's got black and gold sets too, and six in line also. I'm tempted to pick up a set --but I want to make sure they work first.

As as for you, RA, well, glad I could help!

[soapbarstrat]

hmmm, ok, I can barely make out two holes on the shaft, but I guess I can tell what's going on. That's not the same as the sperzel sound-locks. A DIY version of those in the link would be much easier to do than the sperzel design.

[Mickguard]

I'm starting to have doubts about this design.

As far as I can tell, the superiority of locking tuners over normal tuners has to do with the fact that there is no slack at all in the string.

With normal tuners, if you don't get those windings absolutely perfect, you risk having to deal with the slack in the string, however small that may be, when you've changed the string tension -- by bending and especially by using a vibrato. You run the risk of the windings now returning perfectly into place, and the leftover slack gets translated into a detuned string.

With locking tuners, there's none of that, obviously.

Now, I'm looking at the prototype I made of my homemade EZ Lok --and no matter how hard I pull the string through the second hole, there's still some slack there.

So yes, you don't have to wind the strings around the post anymore. But you're still dealing with potential slackness in the string --if you shift the string in the main hole (the hole bearing the force of the string tension), but bending or pushing on a whammy, then you still risk having the string slip in the hole and let out some of the slack.

I may be wrong --I'd like to hear reports from real world users. But I'm going to stick with locking tuners for now. I just unpacked my strat, with locking tuners, from its case after three months of not playing it --it's still in tune!

[thegarehanman]

I really think sperzle's attempt at a "locking" non-locking tuner is the way to go. They have a slot on top of the shaft(like a bass tuner) instead of a hole. Then they drill a hole, off center through the shaft and out the back of the tuner(where the gear is). I also like the look of the open back(which that tuner has). I'll be trying them on my next build.

Edited November 26, 2005 by thegarehanman

[soapbarstrat]

I've had those sperzels on a guitar since August, and believe me, tuning gear problems are the last thing on my mind with that guitar now.

[GregP]

Groovy.

[Mickguard]

How come I haven't been able to find those Sperzels? Do you have a link? They sound interesting.

[thegarehanman]

Sorry Idch, I'm having a really difficult time finding these tuners at any online store right now. I forgot what they were called as well. Infact, I didn't even see them on sperzel's website. However, I'm pretty sure that just about a week ago, specialtyguitars.com had them for sale. I really wanted to use them too, so I will continue my search. Basically, they had an open back(which looked really classy, imho) and the string threaded through the post, out the back, a little off center. The design seemed like it would work really well.

peace,

russ

[marksound]

I know I've seen them, but I looked around a bit and couldn't find them either. Surely we're not having a mass hallucination?

[soapbarstrat]

What's the problem with specialtyguitars.com ? That's where I bought mine. They're out of stock, or what ? Their website is down ?

I had been waiting for Kelloggs to offer them as the toy surprise inside a box of CornFlakes, but I was in a very delusional state of mind all that time. Finally, I fell down the stairs and got some sense knocked into my head, and ordered those suckers.

[marksound]

Shame on me.

http://www.specialtyguitars.com/tuners/soundlock.html

[thegarehanman]

Wow, I must be going crazy. When I went on specialtyguitars.com about 2 hours ago, I could only find sperzel locking tuners, and it's not like it'd be a hard thing to find.

[Mickguard]

Here's how to string them up

The Sperzel's make more sense than the Ez Lok system...but I don't see any advantage of them over the Grover minis I usually use --down to a question of looks I'd say-- I think I like those black Sperzels for my next guitar (which will have a black bridge and black P90, get it?)