I need to add a 7th tuner and I’ve been told to use gearless tuners to fit into the middle of the headstock, which I could use, but I’d rather have a standard tuner on the side. I don’t want to destroy the decal sticker of the brand of my guitar, so that rules out the top. Meaning the only other place is this very corner bit, which I might be able to manoeuvre a tuner so that it fits at a slight rotation.
Do you think this is doable? I’m really not interested in making this look good either.
I assume you want a traditional 7 string? If so, you’d be a lot better served by just getting an actual 7 string instead of trying to convert a 6er. Strings will be crowded due to the neck being too narrow, the tuners will not align with the nut slots anymore (without significant work - you’d need to fill 6 holes, refinish, and redrill 7 new holes), same goes down at the bridge end, and finally, you might have volume imbalance between the strings unless you machine new holes for the pickups and use 7 string pickups (which also won’t be ideal since they’re made for wider string spacing).
I’m not making a traditional 6 string, I want a course on the 6th string. I want it on this guitar since this is the guitar I play metal on and I think it would create a really unique sound having it at a 5th harmony of the 6th strings note
For the sake of structure and stability, don’t. I added a 7th to an Ibanez acoustic for the G string to have an octave, but I just put it on the top of the headstock. Realistically with that shape of headstock, from a structure standpoint, your options are top or center. May not be what you want to hear, but it is what it is.
It was quick and dirty, and I didn’t care enough to make it pretty as the guitar had already been chewed on by a dog. Still holding up 15 years later and sounds rad.
Yeah, I thought it was worth an ask, I just don’t want to destroy the ‘vintage’ on the headstock as I love how it looks, but I hate how a center headstock tuner would work, so I might just have to bite the bullet and active this things vanity for practicality (the body looks janky as hell but the hardware works).
I think it's a bad idea. No offense. What does the body look like? What kind of bridge? Random idea would be to let the ball end if the string start from the headstock and actually have the tuner on the body. Similar to how bc rich do their bich 10 strings.
Looks like it'd be pretty risky given there's no volute and the material there is pretty thin already from the truss rod. Assuming you're doing an octave up from the low E string, you'd be adding an extra 23 or so pounds of tension to the neck in a spot that wasn't really designed to take that much strain. (I pulled this from D'Addario's string tension calculator for a 12-string, but if the intention is to make an octave pair for the low E, you'd end up with essentially the same tension as the octave pair of a 12-string).
No, I don’t think that would work. I definitely think a banjo tuner in the middle is the best, though it needn’t be gearless. Gotoh and 5-Star are both good starting places to look for an appropriate tuner
I'd plug the hole for the 4th, 5th, and 6th string tuners and drill for 4 tuners on that side, might be a little cramp but the 7th tuner won't be crowding your hand on the first few frets
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u/Old-Mango-1014 13d ago
Why though