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Posts: 755
Location: Muenster/Germany | I use to play with alternate tunings very often and I found that my Adamas slothead was not so "smooth" with fine-tuning like the other guitars with standard tuning machines.
I remembered to have an easy- tuning classical guitar with Rubner machines and they are equipped with ball bearings!! Thus I decided to built some of those in my Adamas.
I still have no idea how to bring up pics here so I created a new album on this site for you who might be interested. |
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Posts: 2315
Location: Pueblo West, CO | Very cool mod. Nice job.
How many ball bearings support each shaft? 1 or 2?
How did you align the drill for the hole(s) on the outside of the head stock? |
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Posts: 6994
Location: Jet City | DetlefMichel - 2018-02-19 4:01 AM I still have no idea how to bring up pics here so I created a new album on this site for you who might be interested. First, go to the image on the web that you want to post. If it's not on the web, you gotta get that done first. In your case, you've already put them in an OFC Album which works just fine, or you can use whatever picture hosting site. Once you are at the picture you want to post, right click it and select 'copy image address' then go to your post... 
Once you're done, either hit 'Submit', or continue your post and hit 'Submit' when finished. Your picture should show up and look like: 
Edited by Damon67 2018-02-19 5:50 PM
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Posts: 1034
Location: Yokohama, Japan | WOW DetlefMichel! That really is a cool mod! Where did you get the bearings? Can you tell us the size and exact type of drill bit? Doing something like this on a Celebrity is one thing; but on an Adamas? That's quite a different story! Yikes! Great job! |
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Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | Wow! Looking at that photo album (in order) is very educational.
HERE you go!
Thanks for the show. 
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Location: Muenster/Germany | DanSavage - 2018-02-19 6:26 PM
Very cool mod. Nice job.
How many ball bearings support each shaft? 1 or 2?
How did you align the drill for the hole(s) on the outside of the head stock?
Hi Dan, I used only one of the bearings for each shaft,otherwise the drilling holes would have been too deep.
In fact, the alignment for the drill was a great problem. The wholes in the headstock are nearly 10 mm and the head of the drill is also 10mm but the shaft is only 6 mm in the first 15mm and then 8mm , so I had to build something that would fit in the 10mm hole and lead the drill. I made several supports but they all did not work good, but thank *** I have very steady hands...I am going to make something better because I want to work with my 12 string guitars, too. I´ll show you here if I was successful.
Hi Arumako,
I used a normal 10mm "Topfbohrer"(holesaw drill?) The bearings were on ebay, MR106 ZZ 6x10x3 mm, I bought 10 pcs for 20 Euros.I guess they are often used for model making.
Sure it sounds quite weird to rape an Adamas guitar with tools like that but this is my "take everywhere" guitar and I use different tunings with nearly every new song I play, and I was quite annoyed about the "sque e ek" of the tuners. And I must confess that am a bit spoiled with my easy-tuning classical guitar.
After all this would have been very easy if the holes would have been drilled within the production process in the factory. I wonder why I´ve not seen a slotted headstock like this before, it´s simple to make, not expensive and a real advancement.
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Location: When?? | I'm with Arthur. Your project photo layout was quite informative. Even if it's a "take everywhere" guitar, it would still rack my nerves to drill on such a nice piece.. but it looks like you pulled it off perfectly! And no more sque e ek! |
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Posts: 755
Location: Muenster/Germany | Thank you all for your interest. I´m absolutely positive to repeat this with my 12string, but the 1658 headstock is far not as solid as the one of the Adamas and I have to be very careful, I will need a lot of dry runs before I start. But the promise of a quick-tuneable 12string guitar is very tempting...I ´ll bring detailed photos if I start with it.
And if I talk about my Adamas as my "take everywhere"-guitar I mean this absolutely positive: the guitar is extremely lightweight, reliable, easily playable with every style, great sounding, with a perfect pickup system and unique looks, why should I take another guitar when I go out? This axe was not made for the sofa. |
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Posts: 755
Location: Muenster/Germany | Damon67 - 2018-02-20 12:32 AM
DetlefMichel - 2018-02-19 4:01 AM I still have no idea how to bring up pics here so I created a new album on this site for you who might be interested. First, go to the image on the web that you want to post. If it's not on the web, you gotta get that done first. In your case, you've already put them in an OFC Album which works just fine, or you can use whatever picture hosting site
I did this before, years ago with dropbox, but this does not work anymore, I treally tried. Then I used an other site which is far too expensive today. Then I used IMGUR, which at first worked fine, but suddenly I`m not able to upload pics there anymore, don´t ask me why. I tried gmx, but I can´t see the URL of the pics if I click them.
All the time new programmings and after that nothing works like it did. It´s the same ('*?&%) like with the programs I have to work with every day.
Do you have an idea? I have no smartphone, just a PC. |
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Posts: 755
Location: Muenster/Germany | Today I found the time to work with my 12string. Here´s my little workshop: 
The first problem was that the drill is too narrow on the first 15 mm, so that an outside alignment is needed: 
I tried several things but the best turned out to be a strange looking tool which exactly fit in the 10mm drilling hole of the tuning machines: 
It could be set on the drilling machine and worked fine for the first holes, but when I tried more I found out that some of the drilling holes were not exactly right-angled... so I tried to make an alignment for the drill with a long 10mm wood drill (slooowly, careful..), looks awful, but worked well: 
All in all it took me 3 1/2 hours, some smaller corrections included. It would be absolutely no problem if one could use a big drill press. All this now is nearly invisible but works perfect. 
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Location: Indiana | That's really slick. Nice job.
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May 2011
Posts: 755
Location: Muenster/Germany | There is one 12string guitar left, but this is the most delicate because the wood is thinner and older. The weird tool: 
worked, but far not good enough. Therefor I built a new one, more reliable, I hope: 
I have 12 ball bearings left...and fortunately only one more slothead 12string guitar. |
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October 2012
Posts: 1034
Location: Yokohama, Japan | DetlefMichel - 2018-02-23 2:33 AM
"Today I found the time to work with my 12string. Here´s my little workshop:..."
"I have 12 ball bearings left...and fortunately only one more slothead 12string guitar."
WOW DetlefMichel! You've wasted no time getting to your 12-stringer. You also found the time to figure out how to upload photos to the thread! Congratulations! Really nice job. I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a standard offering on some models in the future...really great idea! Sounds like the last one is going to be the most challenging. Looking forward to seeing which drilling jig you settle on.
Question: Does the guitar stay in tune despite the smoothness of the bearings? Is there any concern for slippage?
Good luck!
Edited by arumako 2018-02-23 6:49 PM
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Joined:
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Posts: 755
Location: Muenster/Germany |
Question: Does the guitar stay in tune despite the smoothness of the bearings? Is there any concern for slippage?
Hi Arumako,
why should it? Normal tuners have only one fix point for the axle and this system now has two so that the axle is not even twisted but is pivoted straight! The Schaller tuners work perfect like always and a worm gearing cannot move against the axis.The only effect of the bearings is that the axles which were in tight wood drill holes before and because of the twist could not move freely enough and impeded the axle movement while fine tuning. This problem is now solved.
Ball bearings are nice, but I think simple self-lubricating metal bushings would have done also.
What shall I say, the Adamas is supposed to be an high-end guitar (and I work with high-end products) and I did not see that a tuning gear which runs or runs not smooth depending on temperature and humidity is not high-end.
What is left that every 12string guitar is not so easy to tune because there is double the tension on the whole construction and if you change one string it influences the whole tuning. 12 string guitars must be tuned more often and before you play at least in 2 steps if not 3. I had my first 12 string guitar 1974 and I played them ever since.
And on this first 12 string I had to work on the string action and other things (bolt-on neck!) and found out very soon that the factory setting was far not the best.
Now I´m curious about your next project.
Greetings to Japan!
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Adamas slothead tuner improvements
