nilebodgers Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 I recently noticed a bit of thin black plastic sheet emerging from the back of one of the tuners on my 2008 MIM Jazz. A bit of search turned up this thread on Talkbass: https://www.talkbass.com/threads/machine-head-problem-fender-mim-jazz-bass.1235882/ and this was clearly the same problem. The "slip sheets" (washers) described in that link are 0.3mm thick plastic. That thread didn't go into detail about good ways to fix it so I thought I'd document the process here in-case anyone else has the issue. Materials needed are some 300um or 350um (0.3mm or 0.35mm) Mylar sheet plastic. This is available cheaply for use in stencil making in the UK. I bought an A4 sheet of 350um thickness from ebay for just over £2, so a very cheap fix. This material is suprisingly stiff and pretty tough & slippery, although it can be cut with sharp kitchen scissors. The tricky bit is making a tidy circular hole in the plastic - I used a 7/16 hollow punch of the kind used for leather work/gasket making. I had to sharpen the cutting edge with a grinding wheel in a dremel to enable the punch to cut the mylar and it took a hefty whack with a mallet to go through cleanly in one go. Once the hole was made it is easy to hold the steel spring washer and mylar together and cut round the washer to get the shape. I didn't follow the concave cutout as this is under the worm gear so isn't really visible. Reasemble with a tiny bit of silicone grease (e.g. clear plumbers grease) on the mylar washer and the job is done. I did all four tuners on my Jazz as all the slip sheets were damaged when I dismantled them to check. Of course, the tuners can be replaced with Hipshot HB7s (footprint compatible) at £100+ the set, or other quality tuners at £60-ish if some drilling+filling of holes in the headstock is done. There is nothing much wrong with the original tuners when they are working properly though (22:1 ratio and 315g for the set of 4) and the fix is very cheap. [I also ran a 2mm drill bit down the string hole in the middle of the tuner post while I had the tuners apart to make it a little easier to install the string] Pics of the process (the light grey material is the new mylar): 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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