Banjo AQAP (As quick as possible): Tuners

I'm going to show you all a quick way, or my way of installing 5 star planetary gear tuners.

First as always as ever, lay out a soft cloth if you're working on a hard surface. This protects your banjo/whatever and protects your desk as well.

So to change your banjo, you need. Your banjo! Grab it, and your new spiffy tuners as well and get ready to put them in. I had previously reamed holes in the woodshop earlier that day and the holes are the correct size for the new tuners. The thing about these five stars, is that they have a little thing on the back to dig into the wood and prevent it from spinning about when tuning. So there's a special process to do it.

First, remove the screw from the top holding down the pearloid button.

Removing the button should reveal the brass squared cylinder which works with the buttons. Remove the collar that would sit beneath the button and take special care to remove the felt washer as well.

On the other end, there's an adjustable collar and washer, remove that too.

Stripped down to the essentials, it should resemble something like this:

Fit the tuner's column sleeve in as far as possible. if you want to maintain a uniform look, have the little part that sticks out pointing the same direction on all of them.

Slip a plastic washer between the chrome

Take a socket and place it on top of the plastic washer.

Have a piece of thick material ready at hand for what we're about to do next. Punch a hole through it. I used card stock since it is thick and easily punchable. Put a hole through it.

Place it over the tuning top where the string goes through.

And place another socket on top. We're going to be using compression forces to get that tuner locked into place. Its also helpful when the tuner wont go all the way in.

Using a C clamp, put it over the sockets and start turning. Sockets are ideal for this job since they have a smooth and/or polished surface making it ideal for this work.