Tuning machines...

[flaviomatani]

Went to get my guitar back from the menders today. Well one of my guitars but the one I've had for nearly half a century. It is a Yamaha GC15d (which I paid something like $1200 for, back in 1976) of the time when Yamaha had set out to make good concert classical guitars. But they chose an old Spanish standard for the distance between axles in the tuning machines of 39 mm. Every other classical guitar in the world has a distance of 35 mm. There is only one maker of guitar tuning machines in the world that makes them to 39, in the USA. Instead of the 30 or 40 quid that a reasonable tuning machine would have cost me when the originals broke, had to pay close on $150 and... they weren't very good. So they had to be replaced when they broke, hardly more than a year since I bought them. So we had to improvise.

The 'mender', Mike Cameron, is an instrument luthier and repairer who must be, like the guy running the Camden Coffee Shop (which is not a café but.. well, a coffee shop where he sells coffee), one of the legends of Camden Town. His workshop is an Aladdin's cave of instruments and he, who is now 80, a trove of anecdotes and information. His solution was to take a normal tuning machine and cut apart the individual tuners; the way he did it it's quite hard to tell that that is what he did so I'm pleased. I've had, as I mentioned, that guitar for nigh on half a century so I'm glad it still is a working instrument.

Comments

[sfred]

I'm glad you've got it back.