Double Bass Replacement for Sloan Machines?

[edfriedland]

Hi all. I just bought a used Lemur Travel Bass, a carved Bromberg model. It's a wonderful instrument, and I'm very happy with it. There is one thing though... It has Sloan tuners (the individual ones) which are awesome, sexy, highly functional, groovy... but heavy. This bass is very light, and the gears make the bass top heavy, it effects the physical balance a little, and I'm concerned perhaps about the added weight for travel. Is there a gear that would be a direct replacement? I'd prefer to keep the replacement non-invasive.

 

[edfriedland]

 

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

The plates on Sloanes are flat on the back, which is pretty unique. Most other commercially-available machines I’m aware of will require wood to be removed to allow the worm gears to turn freely. If you do decide to switch, you’ll have no trouble selling the Sloanes.

 

[BassFalcon]

A good machine shop would be able to lighten those up. Upton offered me that as service as well when making my bass, though it wasn’t on sloanes, they may be a good starting point. Either way there is more than enough brass there to do the job and plenty can be removed with no concerns.

 

[BassFalcon]

1. I checked my email, using upton’s stock tuners on my Upton build they quoted $155 for machine lightening at the time, and sent this photo as an example. These are also antiqued. I would expect maybe a little more since your situation wouldn’t be OEM, and they may have to do a whole new CNC program or whatever. I would think it would still be much more preferable than not using the sloans and otherwise modifying the wood.

https://uptonbass.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/custom_travel_double_bass_13.jpg

 

[edfriedland]

1. I checked my email, using upton’s stock tuners on my Upton build they quoted $155 for machine lightening at the time, and sent this photo as an example. These are also antiqued. I would expect maybe a little more since your situation wouldn’t be OEM, and they may have to do a whole new CNC program or whatever. I would think it would still be much more preferable than not using the sloans and otherwise modifying the wood.

https://uptonbass.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/custom_travel_double_bass_13.jpg

Well, Upton is on the other side of the country for me. Sadly, I don't think Tucson has a bass luthier any more. My old friend Tom Bielejec has retired. It was suggested I could get lighter shafts made for the Sloans, but I'm hoping I can find a direct replacement. As nice as the gears are, they make the bass too tippy and it's really distracting, especially when I practice bowing.

 

[edfriedland]

I see that Sloans are sold with either Aluminum or Brass posts... would anyone know the weight difference?

 

[BassFalcon]

@Bruce Johnson might be able assist as well

 

[james condino]

The aluminum shafts are much lighter.

Hit me up if you decide to sell the current set!

 

[Ed Fuqua]

I don’t know if Jed Kriegel sells his tuners, but they’re great.

 

[micguy]

I see that Sloans are sold with either Aluminum or Brass posts... would anyone know the weight difference?

Aluminum is 1/3rd the weight of brass - if all the parts of the thing are switched, then the whole thing will be 1/3rd the weight, but in a lot of cases, not all the parts will end up as aluminum.

 

[Brent Nussey]

My RN bass has Sloane tuners, with the aluminum shafts. The bass in its Mooradian bag, without other stuff in it, weighs in at 15kg. Laid on the floor, it doesn't tip up, but it's just on the edge of doing so. So even switching out the shafts for aluminum ones might not do the trick. I would consider the Rubner hat peg tuners, for their very light weight and no need to create a recess in the pegbox cheeks to accept them.

You can even have these modified to be easy for quick string changes:
https://www.lamario.ca/article/Strad201111.pdf

Good luck!

Edit: Looking more closely at the backside of the tuners, it does look like some material has to be removed from the pegbox cheeks for these to fit flush. But no recess that has to fit perfectly, it's more like the backside of old Fender tuners.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

@Bruce Johnson might be able assist as well

Thanks for the referral. I have the machines and capability to make up a set of custom tuner posts. I machine up my own custom tuner posts to convert Hipshot tuners to fit my Scroll Bass headstocks. Not difficult, with a mill and a lathe and a few accessories. But I'm very busy, and not really looking for custom work like this.

@edfriedland, if you really want some custom aluminum posts and can't find anyone else, you can PM me.

I agree with the others that I question whether the weight savings would be worth the cost and trouble. Aluminum posts would be 1/3 the weight of brass posts, but they are small parts. I don't have the time to run the numbers, but the weight savings wouldn't be very much.

 

[Ed S]

Just curious - roughly what is the combined weight of the 4 Sloanes the OP has, and what would be the combined weight of the lightest alternative?

 

[BassFalcon]

Thanks for the referral. I have the machines and capability to make up a set of custom tuner posts. I machine up my own custom tuner posts to convert Hipshot tuners to fit my Scroll Bass headstocks. Not difficult, with a mill and a lathe and a few accessories. But I'm very busy, and not really looking for custom work like this.

@edfriedland, if you really want some custom aluminum posts and can't find anyone else, you can PM me.

I agree with the others that I question whether the weight savings would be worth the cost and trouble. Aluminum posts would be 1/3 the weight of brass posts, but they are small parts. I don't have the time to run the numbers, but the weight savings wouldn't be very much.

Just for my own curiousity, what about skeletonizing (is that the word?) the gears? On Upton’s own travel bass If I remember correctly, they say they can save about a pound by doing that, on those Sloan tuners the gears are massive brass discs, surely a decent amount of weight savings could be had by removing a lot of that material. A lot of other double bass tuning machines with very large fine gears have 5-6 holes drilled in them, like these:
https://www.thomannmusic.com/

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Just for my own curiousity, what about skeletonizing (is that the word?) the gears? On Upton’s own travel bass If I remember correctly, they say they can save about a pound by doing that, on those Sloan tuners the gears are massive brass discs, surely a decent amount of weight savings could be had by removing a lot of that material. A lot of other double bass tuning machines with very large fine gears have 5-6 holes drilled in them, like these:
https://www.thomannmusic.com/

It certainly could be done. Not a difficult machining operation. But again, the question is: How much are you willing to spend modifying the Sloans vs how much weight would you save? And compared to the cost of buying another set of lighter weight tuners?

 

[Ed S]

A lot of other double bass tuning machines with very large fine gears have 5-6 holes drilled in them, like these:
https://www.thomannmusic.com/

Those are the tuners I have. I assume you included that pic for an example of discs with holes drilled in them, because they are not fine gears.

 

[edfriedland]

Thanks for the referral. I have the machines and capability to make up a set of custom tuner posts. I machine up my own custom tuner posts to convert Hipshot tuners to fit my Scroll Bass headstocks. Not difficult, with a mill and a lathe and a few accessories. But I'm very busy, and not really looking for custom work like this.

@edfriedland, if you really want some custom aluminum posts and can't find anyone else, you can PM me.

I agree with the others that I question whether the weight savings would be worth the cost and trouble. Aluminum posts would be 1/3 the weight of brass posts, but they are small parts. I don't have the time to run the numbers, but the weight savings wouldn't be very much.

Yeah, I don’t think aluminum posts are worth the trouble for the weight saving. I’m hoping to find something I can just pop in as a replacement and sell the schwanky Sloans. They may be great, but not for this application.

 

[edfriedland]

I’ve noticed my Christopher ply is said to have Rubner gears. I looked on the Rubner site and didn’t see them, but they’ve worked just fine on the bass, and never seemed heavy.

You can see them side by side in picture 1. But I notice the posts are set opposite than on my Tosca. Notice in pic 2 the G string post on the Tosca is the closest to the nut, on the plywood it’s the second one from the nut. Is this something that will complicate things?

 

[edfriedland]

Just for my own curiousity, what about skeletonizing (is that the word?) the gears? On Upton’s own travel bass If I remember correctly, they say they can save about a pound by doing that, on those Sloan tuners the gears are massive brass discs, surely a decent amount of weight savings could be had by removing a lot of that material. A lot of other double bass tuning machines with very large fine gears have 5-6 holes drilled in them, like these:
https://www.thomannmusic.com/

I really just want to replace them. They’d be amazing on another bass. This one is deliberately light for travel, making the headstock too heavy. I don’t want to mess with the Sloans, I’ll sell them as soon as I can find a solution.