Early 70 MM tuner holes coversion

[Badabababa]

Hi

Have anyone tried to sand the tuner hole to put a Mustang or late 70’s lollipop tuners or similar? I am wondering about the tuner alignment after the job is done. thanks!!

[armensguitars]

I assume you're talking about a 1970 musicmaster bass' tuner holes being reamed for tuners of a larger bearing? Firstly, I would definitely not recommend this on a vintage instrument, as you can't easily go back to the correct tuner hole size. I would recommend to find tuners that fit the vintage diameter. That being said it's your guitar, so if you want to widen it, I caution that sandpaper can give an uneven result. I personally would use a reamer to achieve the proper and a consistent radius, as the bearings are often press fit. The caution for reaming is that if done improperly it can chip the wood.

[copacetic]

those early MM basses have tuners unlike any other ive ever encountered on a fender type bass. I found out the hard way using an early 70s MM neck on a customers bass build. Got the neck for a steal but it didnt come with tuners, figured "hey, no problem"
Well it was sort of a problem because original tuners are very rare on the used market, and very expensive when you could manage to find a set. So we realized wed have to find a different set to use.

Turns out traditional gotoh lollipop tuners were way too big both in shaft diameter and overall footprint. Not enough space between the tuners for everything to screw down.

So we ended up going with the only option i could find for lollipop keys with a smaller footprint and thinner shaft diameter: Hipshot ultralites.
Theyre still kinda pricey, and the tuner holes still had to be reamed out quite a bit, but they were readily available and work very well and have the benefit of being lighter to combat neck dive. Though these 70s MM bodies are typically quite heavy so neck dive isnt really an issue anyways.

Heres my thread for that project with plenty of pics if it helps you! 75 MM bass build thread

[Badabababa]

Thank you! I knew someone had done it. Was it hard to ream the holes for you to install Hipshot UL tuners? There are hipshot lollipop tuners that go on Fender Mustang basses, I am wondering if those will fit.

[Badabababa]

update

I ended up getting late 77 MM neck.