Kahler Flat Mount + Shaler mini locking !!! Yes !!!

[Steve_Karl]

I finally got annoyed enough with the Kahler locking nut on my G&L F-100 II to remove it and replace the stock tuners with Schaller mini locking and I'm very happy with the upgrade. I also removed the chrome string tree that retained the g, b, e.
I had to ream out the tuner holes ... rat tail file ... by hand ... easy job ... got a nice snug fit on all.
... drilled the holes with my dremel ... smoke and black saw dust ... woo hoo!

It's staying in tune as well as it ever did, it's an old flat mount ... not perfect but close enough, ( ordered new springs just now)
and the added bonus is that it sounds better, and has more sustain!

The locking nut was sucking tone! ( ahh say ahh say ... dat locking nut was sucking tone! )

It still has the old white bone (or what ever it is ) nut on it and it's not binding at all.

Happy camper here!

 

[Jet-Jaguar]

I've always wondered if you could go locking bridge+ locking tuners and everything would turn out right. I really hate my one OFR nut.

 

[Cagey]

I've always wondered if you could go locking bridge+ locking tuners and everything would turn out right. I really hate my one OFR nut.

I've built a good number of guitars that way and they always work out well. Floyd Rose came up with the locking nut because there was no such thing as locking tuners at the time, so it made sense. Now that there are, there's no real reason to suffer locking nuts. Although, a poorly cut nut and/or string trees can still give you fits, so you have to make sure you've got a good setup.

 

[Steve_Karl]

... an other interesting discovery about this ...

The Kahler has fine tuners.
They seem to have a very subtle effect on the feel of the stiffness of each string,
so I'm using them to adjust the feel of each string relative to the others and then retuning with the 'real' tuners.
Yes, it's subjective and very subtle but it's making a difference for me.

 

[Cagey]

Your mind is playing tricks on you. Or, perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your guitar. Tough to say.

But, unless your fine tuners change the length or mass of your strings, then it takes a certain tension to achieve a certain vibratory frequency. There's really no getting around it, so they'll always feel the same.

The way to adjust fine tuners is so they have a lot of room to pull more tension on the strings as they stretch, which is the wear/failure mode for all strings. You want to back your fine tuners out with new strings so you can gradually tighten them as they wear in. They'll feel the same the whole time, unless you're the type of person who can trick themselves by setting clocks 5 minutes fast or "hiding" money in their wallet.

 

[Steve_Karl]

Your mind is playing tricks on you. Or, perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your guitar. Tough to say.

But, unless your fine tuners change the length or mass of your strings, then it takes a certain tension to achieve a certain vibratory frequency. There's really no getting around it, so they'll always feel the same.

Tension ... no I didn't say tension. I said *feeling* of stiffness.
They change the length ( very slightly ) behind the termination point of the bridge,
very much the same way that raising or lowering the stop tail piece behind a TOM bridge changes the feel of the stiffness of the strings. The TOM / Stop tail piece thing has always been very obvious to me.

With the fine tuners, yes, it is very subtle, but I've been aware of it since very early on.
It's just that having the locking nut made it much more difficult to take advantage of.
Now, after the mod., there's no need to use the fine tuners in the "correct" way, that you describe. I agree with the correct way except for one thing. They've always made the strings feel different, depending on how tight or loose they're turned.
Now, I just tune with the machine heads and leave the fine tuners for the 'feeling' adjustment.

Now, imagine the difference in the *feeling* of stiffness between a Les Paul with a 'normal' TOM with a stop tail piece,
and one with a trapeze tail piece with a bit more distance between the ball end of the string and the saddle on the TOM.
That's the same type of "feeling" difference.

Maybe is the break angle over the saddle or roller that creates the difference in feeling. Hard to say.

My favorite example of this *feeling* would be to anchor a neck at the end of a 30 foot long table, and the bridge of the guitar in the correct place / distance for that scale of neck, with 2 saddles set up for .009 B strings.
Terminate one B string 2 inches behind the bridge, and terminate the second B string (of course it is a very long piece of wire) 20 feet away, at the other end of the table. Tune them both to the correct and same pitch and then try bending them both. Can you imagine that they might *feel* different and you might describe that feeling as a difference in stiffness?
Of course, I haven't really tried this one.
I can only imagine it based on my experience with TOM/Stop, trapeze, and other things I have experienced.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

Locking tuners + LSR Roller nut (presuming you have a 1 11/16' nut width) are pure win.
I only wish that Wilky made the LSR for 7 strings & Tilt Back headstocks and I'd never use a locking nut again.