Loose tuners?

I'm restringing my Fullerton Deluxe Comanche for the first time and I discovered that all the tuning machines are loose. Without string tension, they kind of flop around in the headstock holes, with the actual gear box moving around. It's as if the nuts on them aren't tight. But they seem to be tightened as far as they can go as if the headstock isn't thick enough to take up the whole space left between the ferrule and the gear box when it's bottomed out.

Okay, I just took one of the machines off completely and tightened the nut as far as I feel comfortable doing. I feel like I'm on the edge of breaking the tuner. According to my calipers, the space between the gearbox (that's supposed to lie flat on the back of the headstock) and the inside of the washer (that lies on the face of the headstock) is 13.85mm. The same calipers measure the headstock thickness there at 13.65mm. That's a gap of 0.2mm with the nut cranked down, honestly, past the point where I feel comfortable. If I did my math right, that could lead to a tilt of over 6º.

An additional washer or thicker washer would solve this problem, but I feel like that either something is wrong that G&L should deal with, or that this is intentional for some reason. Does anyone have any input?

It should not do that. Is there any washer / beauty ring between the tuner nut and headstock? I suggest contacting G&L Repairs.

Check out this post as it might address the problem you are seeing (ignore type of tuner in the title):
New G&L Locking Tuners...

Hope this helps.

It should not do that. Is there any washer / beauty ring between the tuner nut and headstock?

There is, but it's very thin. I included this washer when I measured the minimum thickness required by the tuner while it was out of the guitar. Oh, actually, I just noticed that it has a bevel on one side, so it's not just a flat washer that I might have implied it was before. Regardless, the total thickness of that washer/shim/ring is about 1.1mm.

I suggest contacting G&L Repairs.

Will do. That said, the support page on the G&L web site reads a lot like "don't bother us": try the forum; try your dealer; try your distributor.

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Check out … New G&L Locking Tuners...

Yeah, this sounds like the problem I'm having:

The reason turns out to be simple: each guitar is hand made, and occasionally the headstock is just a hair too thin for the stock tuners to clamp.

And it sounds like it's the same advice as before: contact G&L support/repairs.

But I'll say that's disappointing.

1. The tolerances shouldn't be close enough that that's ever an issue. Either get tuners that can accommodate normal variation of headstock thickness or shorten the nut on all of them so that this isn't a problem that an assembler has to consider.
2. It's disappointing that the assembler didn't catch this issue. Honestly, I'm a little unimpressed with the fit and finish on the guitar for a relatively expensive American-made guitar. The nut is pretty badly cut, and I also basically had to remove all of the screws and nuts on the pickguard in order to peel off the protective film that was caught underneath them, and the chamfers on the screw holes have lots of semi-attached swarf. It's not awful, but it's sloppy.

I sent a copy of this post thread to Memo this morning.

Here is his reply:

HI Craig,
We have seen this lately, the easy fix is filing down the nut, which is what we have been doing. Somehow the tuner manufacturer gave use the wrong size so we just put the thread on a belt sander to lower the height. If the customer doesn’t feel comfortable doing this we can send replacements out to them just have them contact me.

Memo Romero
G&L/BBE SERVICE MANAGER

Hope this helps.

Yeah, he got back to me pretty quickly yesterday and offered to send out some replacement nuts. The ones on my guitar don't appear to have been sanded down at all. So either they missed that step, or they didn't realize that they needed to do this when my guitar was built. I'll say that it's very close and if you're doing it in a hurry you might mistake the wobble in the hole as normal wobble of the post.

I tried filing one down myself with a metal file, and it looks like it would work, but I have no good way to remove the burrs that that leaves.

Yeah, he got back to me pretty quickly yesterday and offered to send out some replacement nuts. The ones on my guitar don't appear to have been sanded down at all. So either they missed that step, or they didn't realize that they needed to do this when my guitar was built. I'll say that it's very close and if you're doing it in a hurry you might mistake the wobble in the hole as normal wobble of the post.

I tried filing one down myself with a metal file, and it looks like it would work, but I have no good way to remove the burrs that that leaves.

Did you take up Memo's offer?

Did you take up Memo's offer?

Yeah, they came in the mail over the weekend. Great service.

They also have burrs, though, and the threads aren't chamfered, so I ordered a deburring/chamfering tool that should be here tomorrow.