Headless hardware brainstorming thread

[RyoCanCan]

Hello y'all beautiful bass people.

I'm in a bit of a brainstorming stage of headless hardware designing right now and thought I'd make a thread for different designs, be it diy or not, mainly for inspiration and for those aha moments.

Right now I have this thing sketched out:

It's basically your average tuner just mounted differently.
It's using a drum tension rod as the basis for the vertical rod and worm gear, brass bushings on both ends and a setscrew on the top to keep the rod in place. The horizontal rod has the reduction gear and a steel disc with a set screw to lock the string end into place.
Idea is to have the necessary amount mounted on the horizontal rod with some supports in between if needed.

I've been also looking at patents by Steinberger, Kubicki and others for inspiration and might do something based on them.

I've seen some designs here on the forums as well that looked great and I'd love to see more that people have come up with!

I attached some of the patents I've been looking through google patents, feel free to take inspiration from some of the greatest designs out there.

 

[MPU]

I think Steinberger or Status style headless tuners work great, are easy to maintain and cheap. I see no need for more complicated headless tuners.

 

[RyoCanCan]

I think Steinberger or Status style headless tuners work great, are easy to maintain and cheap. I see no need for more complicated headless tuners.

That's true, but I love tinkering and thinking of other ways to do things.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

That's true, but I love tinkering and thinking of other ways to do things.

You are off to a good start in your design. A good starting point is to use the gear and wormshaft from an existing set of open-gear tuners, like Schaller BM's or Hipshot HB1's. I'd particularly recommend the Hipshots, because they are 28:1 ratio. That will save you a lot of trouble, unless you want to get into machining your own gears.

You could mount the Hipshot gear and worm shaft as you have shown, with the worm shaft sticking out the back. Put some knurled knob on it.

One problem I see with your sketch is the "wheel" that you are anchoring the string to. It's too large in diameter for the 28:1 Hipshot gears. It would require too much torque on the worm shaft to tune. You couldn't turn it by hand with a knob. And you could strip the gears. With 28:1 gears, the wheel would need to be 1/2" to 5/8" dia max.

If you want to use a larger wheel, like 1" or 1 1/4" diameter, you'd need a higher ratio gear set, maybe 60:1. Find some mass-produced mechanism that you can steal them from.

 

[RyoCanCan]

You are off to a good start in your design. A good starting point is to use the gear and wormshaft from an existing set of open-gear tuners, like Schaller BM's or Hipshot HB1's. I'd particularly recommend the Hipshots, because they are 28:1 ratio. That will save you a lot of trouble, unless you want to get into machining your own gears.

You could mount the Hipshot gear and worm shaft as you have shown, with the worm shaft sticking out the back. Put some knurled knob on it.

One problem I see with your sketch is the "wheel" that you are anchoring the string to. It's too large in diameter for the 28:1 Hipshot gears. It would require too much torque on the worm shaft to tune. You couldn't turn it by hand with a knob. And you could strip the gears. With 28:1 gears, the wheel would need to be 1/2" to 5/8" dia max.

If you want to use a larger wheel, like 1" or 1 1/4" diameter, you'd need a higher ratio gear set, maybe 60:1. Find some mass-produced mechanism that you can steal them from.

Yeah, it's very much still a sketch for now. I'm looking at worm gear sets on aliexpress on which I could use my design in some way. So many of them in fact I'm spoiled for choice. I'll try to make it between 30-40:1 and think of a better anchoring point for the string.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Yeah, it's very much still a sketch for now. I'm looking at worm gear sets on aliexpress on which I could use my design in some way. So many of them in fact I'm spoiled for choice. I'll try to make it between 30-40:1 and think of a better anchoring point for the string.

Do you have your own machine shop?

 

[RyoCanCan]

Do you have your own machine shop?

I do not unfortunately, but there are some hacklabs with machine shops that are free to use. I do have the necessary experience to operate the machinery so it shouldn't be much of a hassle.

 

[RyoCanCan]

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the tuning happens with a drum key. It's easy to find properly sized drum tension rods so it's just easy to use a key, plus it adds a bit of leverage for easier tuning.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

I do not unfortunately, but there are some hacklabs with machine shops that are free to use. I do have the necessary experience to operate the machinery so it shouldn't be much of a hassle.

If you have a small mill and lathe, cutting your own worm and gear sets isn't that crazy. I've looked at making up my own tuners from scratch, and it's not really that hard. These gear sets used in instrument tuners aren't true Worm and Gear sets. They aren't full worm gear geometry. Look at the Hipshot gear. The gear is actually a straight tooth sprocket, with the teeth set at an angle. Much simpler to machine up than a true worm gear.

Ideally, you'd design your mechanism with a one-piece spool in the middle, which has the "wheel" with the anchor for the string, stub shafts on both sides, and the gear teeth around the outside. You could make that with a mill and a lathe.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the tuning happens with a drum key. It's easy to find properly sized drum tension rods so it's just easy to use a key, plus it adds a bit of leverage for easier tuning.

I've seen a couple of headless tuner designs which used a small knurled knob, with a Allen-style hex socket in the center. That way, you could do small amounts of fine tuning on stage with your fingers, but get out a T-handle Allen wrench when you are changing strings.

 

[RyoCanCan]

If you have a small mill and lathe, cutting your own worm and gear sets isn't that crazy. I've looked at making up my own tuners from scratch, and it's not really that hard. These gear sets used in instrument tuners aren't true Worm and Gear sets. They aren't full worm gear geometry. Look at the Hipshot gear. The gear is actually a straight tooth sprocket, with the teeth set at an angle. Much simpler to machine up than a true worm gear.

Ideally, you'd design your mechanism with a one-piece spool in the middle, which has the "wheel" with the anchor for the string, stub shafts on both sides, and the gear teeth around the outside. You could make that with a mill and a lathe.

I'm looking at getting a small mill and a lathe at some point. I don't have the space for it but I use my parent's garage as my workshop and they're a-ok with me bringing some stuff there as my step-dad is quite the tinkerer as well.

I'll still better this design for sure, or make something else entirely. The one-piece thing sounds very much like how the Kubicki design works and I'm interested in that as well.

 

[ardgedee]

I've seen a couple of headless tuner designs which used a small knurled knob, with a Allen-style hex socket in the center. That way, you could do small amounts of fine tuning on stage with your fingers, but get out a T-handle Allen wrench when you are changing strings.

Use knobs with 4mm socket. That way you can use the S-shaped Ikea wrenches for speed changes. iirc there's somebody in LC who does that and even incorporates an attachment point for holding the wrench.

 

[ardgedee]

I've been intrigued by the bridge on the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]. It's simple and clever and there's room for improvement if somebody wants to go for it. Basically it uses a C-claw on the end of a bolt, similar as the tailpieces on most headless bridges, but the bridge saddles are screws on sleds. The string rests laterally against the threads of the screw rather than downward on almost all stringed instrument bridges ever, and string height is adjusted by turning the screw.

There are a couple improvements I could see, for example to keep the break angle consistent. The use of screws as saddles is really clever though.

 

[RyoCanCan]

I've been intrigued by the bridge on the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]. It's simple and clever and there's room for improvement if somebody wants to go for it. Basically it uses a C-claw on the end of a bolt, similar as the tailpieces on most headless bridges, but the bridge saddles are screws on sleds. The string rests laterally against the threads of the screw rather than downward on almost all stringed instrument bridges ever, and string height is adjusted by turning the screw.
View attachment 4812401
There are a couple improvements I could see, for example to keep the break angle consistent. The use of screws as saddles is really clever though.

That's actually really cool. I really hadn't looked at their hardware well enough to notice that saddle adjustment. Very nicely thought out.

 

[rwkeating]

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the tuning happens with a drum key...

Having to use an external wrench (or drum key) gets old really fast. I built a very crude (but functional) bridge tuning system that requires a hex key for tuning. Having to pick up a hex key and place it on the right bolt for the string you want to tune wrecks the entire experience. Really.

 

[RyoCanCan]

Having to use an external wrench (or drum key) gets old really fast. I built a very crude (but functional) bridge tuning system that requires a hex key for tuning. Having to pick up a hex key and place it on the right bolt for the string you want to tune wrecks the entire experience. Really.

That might be. I know I don't mind much, I always liked to tinker with drum tunings and pedal settings so I'm pretty used to having it on me 24/7

 

[Max Bogosity]

I've been intrigued by the bridge on the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]. It's simple and clever and there's room for improvement if somebody wants to go for it. Basically it uses a C-claw on the end of a bolt, similar as the tailpieces on most headless bridges, but the bridge saddles are screws on sleds. The string rests laterally against the threads of the screw rather than downward on almost all stringed instrument bridges ever, and string height is adjusted by turning the screw.
View attachment 4812401
There are a couple improvements I could see, for example to keep the break angle consistent. The use of screws as saddles is really clever though.

It looks like the string sits in a turned groove rather than in the thread.
Invalid Link Removed

If it were sitting directly on the thread, I don't think turning the saddle would affect the height of the string. Any given groove in the thread sits at a fixed height above the surface of the 'sled' determined by the thread pitch and the position of the female thread in the sled.

 

[rwkeating]

I believe the NS is set up with the string pull being to the side in order to have more space for larger tuning knobs, Notice how the knobs on the 4 lowest pitched string shave a larger diameter knob than the 4 on the highest pitched strings.

I think it is a brilliant design. I did take mine apart and applied some lubrication to the contact points and that really made turning the knobs even easier and didn't affect tuning stability at all.

 

[ardgedee]

It looks like the string sits in a turned groove rather than in the thread.
Invalid Link Removed

You're right. I could've sworn I'd seen a version of the bridge where the strings sat on the threads, and I assumed that meant the screw was only a post in the sled rather than threaded in. But maybe not.

 

[Max Bogosity]

You're right. I could've sworn I'd seen a version of the bridge where the strings sat on the threads, and I assumed that meant the screw was only a post in the sled rather than threaded in. But maybe not.

Thinking about it some more, it could work if the top part of the saddle where the string contacts is threaded but the bottom part where it is inserted into the sled is not threaded.