Joe Ganzler
Active member
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2001
- Messages
- 6,911
When I bought Gladys 8 years ago, her original D169400 Patent # Klusons were "crumbled", as MOST D169400 Tuners are; either crumbled to unusability or carmelized/shrunken. I happened to have a MINT set of PAF (Pre-'59) tuners with nice, "swirly" tips that I installed on her; after all, with the tuners ON, they look identical. Meanwhile, I sent the original D169400 Patent # tuners off to Terry Mueller, where he installed a set of early Kluson original tips on them. They were still kind of "loosey-goosey" though, so I just put 'em in a ziplock and threw 'em in the string pocket, choosing to retain the PAF tuners for daily use. 6 years ago, when reviewing fellow Forum member "Burstmeup's" parts stash, he showed me a MINT set of original-tipped D169400 Klusons that he had scored - I immediately coveted them! These are virtually "carousel pony turds" in the World of Burst parts, as most of you "regulars" know - for some reason, the tips on D169400 Klusons almost ALWAYS degenerated - shrunken tips/crumbled tips are "the norm". Well, fast forward to three weeks ago, and Burstmeup contacts me, offering me said tuners. I thought about it for 1/10th of a second and said "I'll TAKE 'em!" After lemon-oiling the fretboard and polishing the frets, they found their way onto Gladys - here's the "before & after":
PAF Klusons:
Patent # Klusons:
What's interesting to note is that most of the original D169400 tuner tips that *I* have seen are NOT "swirly" - they are more uniform in color/consistency. I've probably seen less than 10 original sets of these in all the Bursts/Goldtops/ES guitars I've ever looked at. I'm MOST happy to have these - Thanks Burstmeup!:3zone
PAF Klusons:
Patent # Klusons:
What's interesting to note is that most of the original D169400 tuner tips that *I* have seen are NOT "swirly" - they are more uniform in color/consistency. I've probably seen less than 10 original sets of these in all the Bursts/Goldtops/ES guitars I've ever looked at. I'm MOST happy to have these - Thanks Burstmeup!:3zone