Oldpiper - Posted - 11/02/2009:  05:47:30

I've never had a banjo with friction tuners, but there is one I'm interested in. What is the difference in quality, reliability and function between friction and geared tuners? I assume they are fairly easy to swap out if the hole is the same.


Fred USN(SS) Ret.

beegee - Posted - 11/02/2009:  06:05:18

Friction tuners will slip and are harder to fine-tune than geared tuners. Friction tuners are of two main types:
Wedge-fit, like violin tuners, where the tapered peg has to exactly match the tapered hole
Tension-fit, where the adjusting screw of the button draws the button-end closer to the shaft end, utilizing either a cone-shaped portion of the shaft to wedge into the hole or flat surfaces to exert clamping pressure on the peghead surfaces.

Unless you are a purist who insists on vintage correctness or a museum-quality piece, I see no practical purpose in using friction tuners on a banjo.

If the holes are the same size and the peghead is the same thickness, you should be able to swap tuners.

__________________________
"It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing." -Seneca

JohnGP - Posted - 11/02/2009:  06:06:34

They can be an absolute pig to tune assuming steel strings, less of a problem with nylon etc. I would only keep friction tuners on a vintage banjo where installing modern tuners involved enlarging holes or other permanent modifications. Changing tuners is no difficult - a reamer or drill to enlarge the holes, a screwdriver and a suitable spanner will do the job.

John
Actually - it does get better if you pick it.

SoggyBottom - Posted - 11/02/2009:  06:59:13

I started playing banjo with an old 1890's A-scale with friction tuners. It required constant little adjustments and because they are 1:1, I mean little adjustments ... Now playing many modern banjos with geared tuners and an updated Vega ... the geared tuners are much easier to use but what I did learn from the friction tuners was how to tune by ear and how to do it quickly ...so it was overall a good experience

SoggyBottom

SoggyBottom - Posted - 11/02/2009:  06:59:27

I started playing banjo with an old 1890's A-scale with friction tuners. It required constant little adjustments and because they are 1:1, I mean little adjustments ... Now playing many modern banjos with geared tuners and an updated Vega ... the geared tuners are much easier to use but what I did learn from the friction tuners was how to tune by ear and how to do it quickly ...so it was overall a good experience

SoggyBottom

fretlessinfortwayne - Posted - 11/02/2009:  07:17:07

If it is a real collectable, you would likely hurt the value by going to a geared tuner. I agree, however, that geared tuners are much easier to use. I would play it with its existing tuners and see if you get the hang of it before deciding to swap them out.

Dean

"Each one's got to have his own style. It's all creamed potatoes, just fixed a little different." -- Benton Flippen

vega long neck - Posted - 11/02/2009:  07:28:32

When I first got my Vega Tubaphone in the 60s it came with Grover geared pegs for strings 1 - 4 and a Grover 1: 1 (friction) peg for #5. That was a pain to keep tweaked to pitch. This was before the days of the geared 5th pegs so a friend (professional musician, multi-instrument type) suggested I drill the tail piece and install a violin fine tuner at that end. Worked pretty darned well! I took it off in the late 70s/ early 80s for some forgotten reason and have been living with the straight Grover peg since then. Still a bit of a bother, but what the heck...

OBTW, I have geared 5th string pegs on everything else.

Scott

vega long neck - Posted - 11/02/2009:  07:33:26

Whoops, forgot: I had a fretless bango with tapered friction pegs that were fine only because the fretless allowed the player to "true up" the notes with finger position. I didn't mind the tuning hassle with that at all; didn't cause to much of a problem on stage, under lights, etc. I can only imagine the annoyance of a fretted banjo with friction pegs.

Still I believe I would play the banjo as is for a period of several months before I did any alterations to it. Find out the personality of that banjo. Who knows, you may just adapt and enjoy it.

Scott

banjered - Posted - 11/02/2009:  08:02:35

There is another thread about how hard it is to keep a banjo tuned even with planetaries. I have an old cheap Iida with guitar tuners which I need to tune about 1/10 as often as with the planetaries. I don't know if it just that banjo, or, are guitar syle tunes more stable in general????? TC

jims38134 - Posted - 11/02/2009:  16:28:51

Fred,
Try the banjo first with the friction pegs. I have an (early 40s vintage Slingeland tenor that has the original friction pegs. As long as the button screw is tightened adequately, I don't find them to be a problem. And I also use steel strings by the way.
Jim

dhergert - Posted - 11/02/2009:  18:02:08

Ummm, I'd vote with staying with the original pegs. If it's old enough to have friction pegs on it, it will be a collector's item sometime in its future, even if it isn't now.

I've got three old banjos with all friction tuners and two old banjos with original geared tuners combined with friction 5th string tuners. The rest have all geared tuners. I wouldn't change any of them.

Let's face it, banjos are just plain hard to tune no matter what tuners you've got on them -- if you're changing tuners just to make it so you can tune your banjo, your head needs adjusting.



Best,

-- Don
http://www.youtube.com/user/dh5string
http://home.att.net/~dhergert
http://mysite.verizon.net/don_hergert


"If you must use your banjo as a snow shovel, do so:
only don't wonder if it sounds dull afterwards."
-- S.S. Stewart catalog, 1896.

vernob - Posted - 11/03/2009:  02:56:27

A banjo is a musical mule: stubborn, makes funny noises, but you still want one when you do. Friction pegs, when adjusted just right, are OK. Geared pegs are easier to tune though.

Bruce Vernon

"A gentleman is a man who knows how to play the banjo, but chooses not to." - Mark Twain

"Don't worry about mistakes. There aren't any." - Miles Davis

fretlessinfortwayne - Posted - 11/03/2009:  06:32:28

Musical mule. Now I like that. That's better than a musical groundhog or a musical woodpecker.

Dean

"Each one's got to have his own style. It's all creamed potatoes, just fixed a little different." -- Benton Flippen

johann - Posted - 11/03/2009:  06:56:45

just keep a screwdriver in the case for those friction pegs. They will get loose and slip on you -- and its as simple as tightening the screw on the end and then tuning the string.

That being said, I just recently replaced a 5th friction peg with a geared one. It was a very cheap banjo but I feared performing with the friction peg in case it slipped during a tune -- or even between tunes because I wouldn't want to be using a screwdriver on stage!

CoE15NJV - Posted - 11/03/2009:  07:49:42

I remember the first banjo I had (in the '60's) had an aluminum rim, triangular shaped neck (which was painted black), guitar tuners (one had no button - had to tune it with a pair of pliers), and the 5th string tuner was friction - which was OK at first, but, when it went out of tune was a real "bear" to tune up and keep in tune.

Steven

talentedmusic - Posted - 11/03/2009:  08:37:01

I agree that friction based tuners are complete garbage to tune compared to geared. I currently use non-friction, non-geared Steinberger Gearless tuners. I enjoy them quite a bit and found they're significantly easer to tune with ratio smaller than 4:1. Steinberger claims that they're 40:1, but I don't know how they ascertained that since there are no gears. if I had to guess based on how much I have to turn the peg for an increase and decrease in pitch, I think they'd be more of a ratio of 20:1.



"I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." - Ayn Rand

rexhunt - Posted - 11/03/2009:  09:22:19

Old friction pegs can be made to work a whole lot better by a little maintenence from time to time. The wood on the peghead gets slick with time and no amount tightening the screw will keep them from either slipping or becoming impossible to turn. Take the tuner off and then take a knife or file and rough up that slick area of wood. Even geared banjo pegs with the 2:1 or 4:1 ratios are partly friction and will suffer the same fate over time. Rather than a slick wood surface though, the problem is a leather or some other sort of non-metalic washer.

Having said all that, the 1:1 ratio of friction pegs can be a pain. I don't know of any geared pegs that will fit holes drilled for patent friction pegs except for possibly guitar style tuners. There are geared pegs that fit smaller holes but not that small. I know, I bought some and still had to ream out the peghead on an old cheap tenor. If you are going to enlarge those holes, DO NOT DRILL, ream them out to size.


Rex

Edited by - rexhunt on 11/03/2009 09:26:04

theonly1hardway - Posted - 11/03/2009:  14:07:12

With the banjos I build I use mostly Grover friction tuners, they do carry a lifetime guarentee. I don't own but 2 banjos with friction tuners and I really don't have any trouble, but than again there not the ones I usually pick up when I play. I tune every banjo I build and play a little and never seem to have any real trouble, I tighten them a bit if they slip in the beginning until they hold. At the present I have a banjo that I built that has been strung up for 2 weeks, I check it every evening...so far its still in perfect tune. I build mountain style banjos and I think the reason I use friction tuners is they look better on a mountain style than a planetary geared tuner.

www.harrisonbanjos.com