Official Luthiers Forum!

Anyone here made wood tuner buttons, or care to share how they're made, in detail (with photos please)

TIA

vs just buying custom wood buttons?

http://www.nicholsguitars.com/tunerbuttons.htm

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Hi Brock,

Yes. I Thought the process would be interesting to discuss. Craig's cool router jig would be indespensible, I think.

I EM'd Bill to see how much a set of Coco would be.

I have thought about using Craig's gizmo, (or a custom jig built on a similar idea) but just haven't gotten around to really playing with it.

If you come up with something please share.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Ditto. I'd like to see how it's done. Maybe I'll do some serious thinkin' on that this winter when painting slows down.

My banjo guilding buddy is quite the craftsman, and would very likely just make em by hand and eye. He does a lot of heel carving, metal and pearl engraving too. He's very good, and an ispiration.

Oooooooooo, those are so nice! Thanks Brock.

Here is another thought about how I might approach this (For Schaller type buttons) -

make a flat board that sets on my vertical edge sander, then have an attachment on a pivot pin that will swing the button in an arc at the right radius to put the proper curve on it. I am guessing you would either stick the button down with tape or a destaco clamp

(You would need two of these pivot arms, one for the front edge and one for the back edge)

I am not sure if it would be better to put the edge radius on it before you put the curve on the top and bottom, or after.

Again... just some thoughts I had. I haven't really messed with it yet.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Also you could take a longish board and put the radius on both sides of the whole board (production style), drill them, then cut them out, profile tops & bottoms

Haven't thought it through much. I might try to make a set just for fun. It looks like there's inserts in the holes on Bill's site