Official Luthiers Forum!

I received a set of 510's and one of the six back cover plates pushed in with light pressure when putting them in the peghead. None of the others would push in with twice the pressure. The vendor sent a replacement right away (different button) and sure enough that one pushed in as well under light pressure. Is this a common thing on these? I cant imagine that this should be happening and they are designed to push in like tis one some units. Its not a functional issue just that they look different and most would probably notice when taking a good look at the instrament, but for $100, I'd expect these not to do this.

Heres a pic showing the first bad one, replacement and one of the good ones. L to R.

Todd, I'm not really sure how that cover is build, but it seems very solid as if there is a metal cover with a PSA decal as you mention. The two that moved from flush to about .5mm in now seem as solid as the others after they pushed in, just sunken down and not flush. The decal (if its as decal and mot just printed on the metal) doesn't seem misapplied in any way.

Zach,

The cover is a stamped metal plate. That is the part that gets stamped if you want your custom logo on the tuners. You can get it positive or negative embossed. Anyway, I have not heard of your issue before. Have your supplier ask his rep to get an answer for you. Please let us know what you discover.

Thanks

Shane

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Canada

I've used about 5-7 sets of the Gotohs like yours. I think that maybe 2 or three tuners had the backs slide in deeper as you describe. Doesn't seem to change the way they work, just looks a little different on close examination. I just blew it off 'cause its such a small issue and there's nothing you can do without disassembling them. To each his own.......

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The Biggest Little City, Nevada
www.hammondguitars.com
I love building guitars!

It happens once in a while. I wouldn't let it bother me....

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

What is happening is all machine formed and die casted parts have their own manufacturing tolerance. When they are assembled some times matching tolerances get beyond the ideal. In this case the body casting has a circular slot concentric to the main body bore that the cap is to set in. Most likely the body casting main bore is at the large side of the acceptable manufacturing tolerance and the diameter of the caps are at the small side of the acceptable manufacturing tolerance. This leads to body bore not to have as much of a slot ledge to hold that cap as was designed to have. There for it takes less force to push the thin cap past its seating ledge. This does not happen often because most of the times both parts are near the middle of the manufacturing tolerance. But when dies and casting molds reach near the end of their life cycles they start producing parts at the extremes of the acceptable manufacturing tolerance which leads to parts that assemble togather at less than ideal fit

Anyway this is the not typical but does happen in mass manufacturing. Just the nature of the beast.

This has happened to me several times with the 510's. Nobody has ever commented on the uneven tuning machine cover plates however you can bet that I am now very careful when installing them.

Pat

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

Any sealed machine I always use a backing caul to press in. that way I am putting the load on the body casting and not the cover.

What Michael said....I do the same thing as I had a few push in as well, darn near impossible to tell though, I really don't think it is an issue but I try to avoid it now.

Cheers,

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Gwaltney Guitars

Update:
So after receiving the replacement tuner that did the same thing, the vendor suggested that it really sounded like I was applying too much pressure. I again restated how the other five took multiples of that pressure with no movement. That said I could return then for refund or replacement. As I have a 2 out of 7 failure rate so far, I did not think my odds of getting a new set that all were correct was good. Even if I take special care on installation, this could happen at anytime in the future when handling the instrument, however small the probability is. So I’m going to try to get this think to pop out, if not I’ll live with it. Its staying in house, so no bid deal. Anyone ever take one of these apart? I’m thinking of trying to rig up some sort of vacuum gripper to grab onto the plate so I can pull it back out to flush.

The overall issue is that they have never heard of this issue before, even though some of you have seen it. I don’t want to name the distributor, even though the have been very good to work with, but most of you buy from them. They said they would be at NAMM this week and will speak to Gotoh about it. Hopefully they get back to me on the conversation as promised, which point I will pass it along to all of you. But I think there is a lesson here to all (outside of taking extra care handling and installing 510s), if we as the consumers don’t give feedback on something like this, the manufacture/distributor will never know the problem exists and wont look into it to solve any possible issues. I’m usually not one to make a fuss and typically deal with things or fix myself, but manufactures do need and should want feedback on their probucts.

Hi Zach-

I have 5 sets on hand and have had this happen with 2 tuners in 2 of those sets. I didn't try to push in any more to see how many would do this. I guess this isn't a common problem but certainly not unheard of. It really doesn't look bad so I didn't give it a lot of thought - it would be nice to pull this out though.

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John Lewis
Wannabe builder owned by 2 crazy dachshunds

I just push them all in and then they look the same.

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Ken Franklin
clumsy yet persistent
https://www.kenfranklinukulele.com

I think this has happened to just about everyone that uses them regularly. When I first discovered they did this, I tried to repeat for the entire set and found that only some sunk in. This isn't really a noticeable thing and so I think you would be just fine. However, in the future just be careful not to push on the plate.

Word from the distributor today was "I talked with Gotoh. They are aware of the problem now and will take steps
to address it in future production runs. No time frame on this though."