Official Luthiers Forum!

A most pleasant package arrived today.
A customer of mine has been on the Rodgers' waiting list for months, and his slot came up. We spent numerous emails hashing out what might be good, what might look good, and came to a concensus. He specified the details, and waited. They arrived at his home this week, and he sent them on to me.
This will be our first opportunity to use Rodgers tuners, and the pressure is on to make a guitar actually worthy of the tuning machines!

Materials--nickel silver plates, Hauser pattern.
Brass shafts and the longer pips, chrome string posts.
Black pearl buttons. These will be going on a slot head steel string.

This first shot is my favorite, though the color is off--the plates look like brass when they are actually nickel silver. It's just one of the better shots:





This next shot is actually truer to color. Both the customer and I admired the two-toned effect of silver color plates with the brass gears.





Of course, the workmanship is of the highest quality. I can see no flaws anywhere, no rough edges, no incomplete polishing. The bushings were held in place on their shafts with the finest thread which ran through the string holes. Didn't have the heart to break into that yet, so no report on the smoothness of the gears.
But my guess is that like everything else, that too will be superior.

It's amazing what $750 can buy, isn't it?

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

They are nice. I don't know that i would ever pay $750 for tuning gears. And I thought $450 was expensive for the Waverly mandolin tuners... Mike

Best tuners in the world Steve. I've fitted two sets to classicals, which were a little more expensive than those! However, they are worth every penny of the price, they truly are the Rolls Royce of the tuning head world.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Steve: Absolutely a work of art and I know that you will indeed do justice to these tuners. Having said that I think items like this are up very high on the curve of deminishing returns but I guess different things turn different cranks. Again a pleasure to see such work.
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Thanks for the positive feedback, guys, and thank you Colin for the testimonial. I'm thinking that a trip over to England to visit the Rodgers shop would be a wonderful write-off, not to mention time well spent.
And Tom, your comment about cranks reminds me that I'll "forbid" the owner using a string winder on these!

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

The last set I ordered Steve was a two year wait.........what
was your customers recent experience??

Steve,

Lovely tuners and genuinely hand made - is there a Mr Waverly that makes all the Waverly's or was that in The Man From U.N.C.L.E

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Beautiful tuners indeed! Are these a direct replacement for Waverly's or any other slothead tuners?

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

David, those tuners are beautiful! My customer's wait was something like 16-18 months...I forget actual dates, but it wasn't quite 2 years. Ouch!

Dave--a "Mr. Waverly"? Can't you just see him bent over his bench while mean Montanans crack the whip over his head?

JJ, these will be original equipment. We haven't even finished spec'ing the guitar yet, but his slot came up and he jumped on it.

Thanks guys,

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com