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Has anyone tried the Santa Cruz Guitar Company tuners shown here?



Scott Thompson38627.107349537

_________________
Scott Thompson
Port Townsend,WA

"In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune
But this is reality so give me some room"
-Billy Bragg

havewn't tried them, but it is interesting to note that they don't mention the actual price...

The prices are listed on the page...at least when I looked at it:

"Setting a New Standard..."Santa Cruz Guitar Company (SCGC)'s new open-back tuners are setting an exciting new standard for "vintage-style" guitar tuners.
Tuner Options

Nickel:
w/ nickel buttons: $65
w/ ivoroid buttons: $85
w/ ebony buttons: $85

Gold:
w/ gold buttons:$75
w/ ivoroid buttons: $95
w/ ebony buttons: $95

(prices include shipping & handling)

About a year ago I had a set of Santa Cruz open back tuners. I was told that though they were made by Grover and looked superficially like the Grover Sta-tite tuners that in fact they were different. Theoretically they were made to Santa Cruz's specs. I had both kinds of tuners in hand so I did a comparison, put the micrometer on all the fittings, measuring the diameters of each rotating surface, thickness of brackets, etc. and I could find no differences at all. None.   Materials seemed to be the same, plating was the same quality, and they had the same nylon slack reducer in the bearing surface.

Now I am not saying that Santa Cruz was wrong but I could not find any differences at all between those two brands, except for the price and the fact that one had Grover embossed on the mounting plate, and the other had Santa Cruz.

Maybe things had changed in a year.

John

The price doesn't seem too bad for a premium tuner and the SCGC brand will add value for some people. My only quibble, and it's a minor one, is with the claim that a cast metal part is inherently superior to a stamped part.

That ain't necessarily so. It depends upon the function of the part, the material being cast and the quality of the casting/stamping.

Take a look at a proof coin and you'll see that stampings can produce beautiful results.

Mechanically, both methods have their advantages and disadvantages.

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D..

They ARE different .... That ought to raise a few eye brows ... Well according to Grover (who makes them for SCGC) the ONLY difference is that SCGC install their own buttons on them! PERIOD... Great tuners by the way. They have been my standard tuners since they went on the market. I always tell my customers I will upgrade to Waverly's (which are direct replacement) if they are not satisfied with the Grovers. Everyone raves about the Grovers and I haven't upgraded a single guitar yet.

Make sure you get the 18:1 ratio as these are the new ones and the 14:1 ratios are the old tuners and not nearly as nice.

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tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

I have one pair of SCGC tuners on my personal gutiar, and out of the six tuners, one has so much slop that I will have to replace it. The quality is not bad, just not up to Waverley's standards. (one man's opinion obviously)

The Santa Cruz are, as has been pointed out the Grover 18:1 tunners, at almost thre times the cost. Only difference being the name on them. That being said I have been using the grovers and have been very pleased with them untill recently. Over the last three months I have had three gold sets that were Bad. The first two I didn't notice when they went on the guitars, lasted 1-2 months and came back in with the grears stripped. As I checked em out I discovered they had more slop in the gears on the bass side compared to the others. Found one more set of Gold tunners that had 2 that were sloppy and one set of nickle with one bad tunner. I had bought all of these through Stew Mac and they replaced them no questions asked (Stew Mac is great). I was also talking to Mario who was in on the orriginally group buy that got so many of us using these and he commented that that first Gross they got were really good but he has been hearing about some quality control issues. I am now pushing the Waverly upgrade.

Interesting. So any one know who is making the Taylor tuners?
http://taylorguitars.com/taylorware/item.asp?itemid=1047&cat egoryid=1004Scott Thompson38627.7808680556

_________________
Scott Thompson
Port Townsend,WA

"In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune
But this is reality so give me some room"
-Billy Bragg

Looks like schallers to me.

On another note, Did anyone notice that the guitar in the Tennessee State quarter is out of proportion?
It also appears to have only 5 strings! And that looks like a flying v head shape to me!