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I need to make some tuner buttons out of cocobolo. The guitar will have shaller tuners. My plan is to replace the metal tuner buttons with cocobolo buttons to match the binding etc. I have seen jigs for making these buttons on a disk sander. Does anyone know where I can find information about making these jigs?

TIA
John

come on guys. Somebody out there hep me.

John,

Apparently Dan Fobert at the February 2007 LINT meeting described how he makes wooden buttons for Schaller tuners - scroll down the page here. Contacting him may be a good start - your bro' should be able to help there

I made these Curly narra buttons for Gotoh tuners in my recent Euro sprice/curly narra guitar. I didn't use any jigs for them:

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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

Thanks for the tip Dave. Those tuner knobs look good, especially so for free hand work. I may get up some courage and go for it sans jig. This is a one off set of knobs.

John

John,if you do work it out it'd be nice if you could share it here. I know Brock was asking about this a couple years ago (maybe ask him if he got it sorted?), I've been on the look-out for jigs that could do it too. Low priority for me though, just something that'd be nice to add to the reptoire.

John ,
If it is a big enough pain in the rear to make them ,perhaps buying is better.
If you come to that conclusion ,try THG knobs.They can even use your wood.
I have never used them myself but the work I have seen is superb.
Good luck

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How long is that in luthyears?

If there were enough people interested, I have tuner buttons for Gotoh and Grover ready to run off already (and, with a sample, I could adapt them to fit Schallers easily), but I'd only offer them in a group-buy situation as we're not doing small run stuff right now. I could also make a handy-dandy jig for them, if enough people wanted it...

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

John, I'm not sure if you are looking to retrofit with circle, oval or other type wooden knobs, but if you are wanting to make circles you could use a plug cutter.

Some of the high end mandolin builders will cut their own pearl knobs to replace the ebony knobs on Waverlys.

Sounds like a cool idea, please keep us posted.

I've thought about making a set myself. Does anyone have a source for the brass inserts?

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

Thank you gentlemen. There are some good solutions here. What I really want is a quick and easy way to make the buttons for occasional use. I really don't want a group purchase and I didn't allow myself enough lead time to have them made for me. The circle cutter idea seems promising, though I would still want a slight radius on the face of the circle.