What is inside one of these tuning pegs to stabilize it?

billyshakes · May 31

Hi all,

Picked up a used guitar and one tuning peg seemed to be bent. When I took off the string tension, what I actually observe is that the shaft has some movement or play in it. All of the other pegs seem to have no movement. They stay straight and aligned. As I look at the peg, there looks like a little white plastic bushing or buffer on all pegs, just this one seems like it is fallen out a bit or maybe just loose?

So my question is, can anyone explain what goes on inside here? Is it as simple as just taking the button off and replacing some rubber gasket or something? Is there a simple DIY fix here or is it something where I need to replace the whole 3-on-a-plate assembly? It does still turn and hold tuning, but I'd like to address it before it strips out the gear too much.

Thanks in advance for any advice you might have.

paulmcevoy75 · May 31

Probably some sort of nylon bearing surface. I don't think there's any way to replace it unless it's a super nice guitar and you have someone make you one which unless they are super nice tuners might cost more than replacing them.

That said if you can live with it I doubt the tuners are going to wear out anytime soon.

It might not have anything to do with the nylon though. Is that black screw reasonably tight? It might also be that the tuner isn't fit well into the holes on the guitar, either too tight or too loose.

I'm talking out of my butt here, I've never tried to fix a tuner.

Do know that the very very cheap 3 on a side tuners that are stamped out of sheet metal are absolutely awful.

If it's a nylon string I really like the Der Jung tuners that you can get from classicalguitartuners.com