Ibanez machine heads breaking.

[TimR]

One of my machine heads broke many years ago. I bought a set and replaced just the broken one. The E string. Kept the others a spares. 

Last night I had another failure. Again with the E string. The post just shears off at the bass. Seems to be cast aluminium. Not the best design. 
 

The fault seems to be over time the tension in the string pulls on the post and must strain the gearbox or something. All the other posts have about 90 degrees where the tuner is very tight. The rest of the rotation is free.  

I’ve now replaced the D and the G and obviously the E but that leaves the A as I’ve already used the spare ‘A’ tuner on the E string (if that makes sense) The tuners are handed for top and bottom. 
 

The bass is probably 15 years old. 
 

Anyone else seen anything similar? 
 

Should I just order another set or upgrade somehow with a different manufacturers?
 

Any suggestions welcome. 

[AndyTravis]

Get some gotoh tuners or schallers or something, will cost £40/£50 if you can find some used ones but you’ll never have to bother again.

[TimR]

Thanks. StewMac have them new for under £50.  Seems both the Warwicks and Ibanez also suffer from random snapping as well. That’s crazy. 

[AndyTravis]

I often find tonetech luthier supplies and touchstone tonewoods have cheap deals on machine heads. Depends how fussy you are.

[TimR]

Quick update. I bought a single Gotoh machine head back in January and fitted and was great. Then decided I should really replace them all. 
 

Then came the pandemic and couldn’t find them anywhere for love or money. Maybe I wasn’t looking properly. 
 

Anyway new set £62 delivered now fitted. And I have a spare for my E or A string. 
 

Only real physical difference is slight colour, these are a more black/gold sheen and the post is a lot wider so only have 3 windings round each post as I didn’t replace the strings. Think that’s just about enough.

[BigRedX]

2 hours ago, TimR said:

Only real physical difference is slight colour, these are a more black/gold sheen and the post is a lot wider so only have 3 windings round each post as I didn’t replace the strings. Think that’s just about enough.

Unless you need to wind the strings down the post to get a decent break angle over the nut you shouldn't need more than 1½ to 2 turns for the string to hold in place. 

[Woodinblack]

Never had a machine head break at all, and I have a lot of Ibanez, although a few of them have hipshots and Gotohs on them.

[Baloney Balderdash]

I got a GRSM20 Mikro Bass, which is actually my main, that I owned since April 2011, and I have never has any issues with the tuners whatsoever, even if this is a cheap budget Ibanez, on the contrary they work exceptionally well for being tuners on a such a cheap instrument, and the bass holds tuning extremely well too. 

[TimR]

Yes. It’s weird. There are reports of the same issue online. I may complain and send the failed parts to them just to see what they say. 
 

I’m not particularly careful with my bass, I know some people get very precious but it’s just a plank of wood to make music with, but it still needs to be comfortable and reliable. It may have got knocked in a gig bag or whatever. But seems odd that all of them were tight and even the ones that I’d never fitted had a lot of ‘slop’ in them. Especially compared to the Gotoh ones which have no slop and feel more robust and much higher quality. Although at 3x the price I’d hope so! 
 

The rest of the bass is absolutely solid and I’d buy it again - and upgrade the machineheads immediately. 

[Krysbass]

The nylon washer broke on one of the original machine heads on my Ibanez SR600.  Other than the battery clip needing replacing, this is the only thing that has broken in nearly 10 years of heavy use.

My solution was to invest in a set of Gotoh GB707s. These seem to be solidly engineered and are a direct upgrade requiring no modification to the headstock - given that these are original hardware on the SR premium models.

I’ve fitted Gotoh machine heads to 4 of my basses and use Glued To Music, (UK based) as they usually have a good selection of Gotoh products in stock.

 

[PaulThePlug]

My 'new to me' SR600 had a broken machinehead plastic washer...

£4 for a pack of 8, posted from CDGuitars... arrived next day...