martyjoe - Posted - 12/31/2024:  07:46:07

Are Wittner geared tuners known to be weak? Have had two fail on the same string (4th) on the same viola and now another on a different string (2nd) on another viola. I have them on seven instruments some of which are subject to more string tension for a few years and these ones that are failing are new.

The Violin Beautiful - Posted - 12/31/2024:  10:09:10

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Originally posted by martyjoe

Are Wittner geared tuners known to be weak? Have had two fail on the same string (4th) on the same viola and now another on a different string (2nd) on another viola. I have them on seven instruments some of which are subject to more string tension for a few years and these ones that are failing are new.

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Of the hundreds of sets of Wittner pegs I've installed, I've never had a single peg fail yet. How did yours fail? Are they fitted well enough to hold firmly or are they slipping in the holes? Are the gear mechanisms damaged? I took a violin on consignment that had had Wittner pegs on it for years and the pegs had started to turn more freely than when new, but they still worked flawlessly. Repacking with fresh grease would have made them more buttery to turn again but I never bothered because they still worked so well. 

martyjoe - Posted - 12/31/2024:  13:43:54

The gears have given in the ghost on two of them. I jumped to an early conclusion on today’s one. That was due to the peg slipping in its slot. I put them in yesterday but haven’t cut them to length yet so that isn’t so bad. These are going on Tenor Violas GDAE so the string hole in the 4th peg slightly is enlarged to accept a cello C string. For the early Tenor conversions I used 1/2 cello strings which are uncomfortably big but they still didn’t present a problem with the tuners. You see the ball end on cello strings are way too big for viola fine tuners so they need to get planetary tuners on the peg head. For the next order I’ll try perfection tuners and see how closely the 4/4 cello C fits, it’s almost as there with the Wittners.

tarheel - Posted - 01/18/2025:  16:32:09

Did the new pegs have the same taper as the peghead? Or the reamer you used?

martyjoe - Posted - 01/18/2025:  22:25:29

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Originally posted by tarheel

Did the new pegs have the same taper as the peghead? Or the reamer you used?

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My peg reamer has the correct taper. It has served me well. The Wittner that's in there now is working perfectly well without having to re-ream the peghead. My main concern was that I may have compromised the tuner by enlarging the string holes. It's all good so long as I don't go any larger than 4/4 cello strings. 

Dick Hauser - Posted - 02/25/2025:  15:15:03

I use Wittner geared tuners. I also have Wittner fine tuners in the tailpiece. With the geared tuners my fiddle stays in tune. I have 3 fiddles and when one rarely gets out of tune, the fine tuners can get a little work in. Never had any problems.

Dick Hauser - Posted - 03/12/2025:  13:45:08

A luthier on Youtube has a video on installing Wittner Planetary Tuners. He did some little things I would have never came up with.

martyjoe - Posted - 03/12/2025:  15:24:26

As I mentioned above it turned out to be only 2 Wittners have failed. The gears must have stripped out on them. I suppose it is understandable when I’m tuning cello strings with Viola pegs. On my go to tenor I have shortened the string length by 5mm to 415mm. This should help a fair bit. I’m going to try fractional sized Wittner cello pegs on the tenor viola that I’m making. Hopefully they won’t look too cumbersome.

DougD - Posted - 03/12/2025:  15:39:16

I was going to suggest that. The inventor of the original "Peghed," predecessor of the Perfection peg, is a cellist.

tarheel - Posted - 03/17/2025:  20:03:53

when you were fitting them did you happen to pull them out by the peg head? they recommend you tap them out, pulling will mess up the gearing.