The Electra Forums

Just thought I'd put this up here (maybe it should be in the "Parts" section?) for some general information that might be of interest.

I've been posting the last couple of days because I won ebay item 7424250655 on Saturday, which is a very nice Electra ES-175 copy -

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 7424250655

Do a search for my handle and you'll see all I've had to say about it.

And if you do read my posts here, you'll also see my mention of my Burgundy Pro that I don't think is a Burgundy Pro. I think it's a guitar that was slated to be an Ibanez 2454 that ended up getting badged an Electra. I also got that one on ebay (last year). I have the same theory about this ES-175 (originally slated to be an Ibanez but ended up as an Electra).

Anyway, you can read all about that if you want. The point I want to make here is that my so-called Burgundy Pro came with obviously-original pearloid tuners that are pretty good copies of those that came on the Gibson 335's and a lot of other Gibson models. And they look super on my BP. They really give it THAT look.

But the new one (the ES-175) has kinda funky tuners like I have on my Vantage Ghost. They really don't make it at all. I don't have the guitar in hand yet, but I expect it to be a very nice quality guitar like my BP is. And I think a nice set of proper tuners would really make it shine. Here's what I'm talking about in terms of what it would look like with proper tuners on it -

http://cgi.ebay.com/1953-Gibson-ES-175D ... 0000803847

So I did some snooping around the 'net and I had a pretty darn hard time finding what I was looking for. But I finally did, and I want to share it with everyone here -

http://www.elderly.com/accessories/items/ST6K.htm

Those are pretty nice tuners and pretty authentic too. That site is also a very interesting and good site, and if you check out their entire stock of tuners you'll see that they have some other ones like these but just a bit different (like single ring instead of double ring).

The only problem I see with them is the holes. I'd have to drill new holes in the headstock to mount them, and I absolutely hate doing that to a vintage guitar. Maybe I can get over that, but I'd rather devise some other method if at all possible. It might require some serious thought and maybe a lot more snooping around.

Anyway, there they are for everyone if you are interested. And I didn't think the price was too bad either.

I also found another source for just the buttons if that's all you need and can get by with just replacing the buttons. I know I wish I could on this new ES-175.

Lastly, I don't believe I've ever seen any Gibson-type tuners (buttons) like these on any Electra model. If anyone else has ever seen them, I'd really like to know about it.

Ibanez used them on a LOT of their copy guitars from '71 - '77 (and probably beyond), but I don't think I've ever seen them on any Electra.

Come to think of it, these would probably look pretty sweet on my Jazz Strad as well.

Hmmmmmmm