Lately, I have been trying to give my Squier Bass VI some much needed attention. (Haven’t played much since shifting house.) Cleaned off the dust, changed the strings, and polished it up. Mucked about with a few riffs, which reminded me how much I love playing, despite a tragic lack of musical ability. But the instrument doesn’t quite sound as good as it can…

The intonation of the low E string is a known issue, and I am planning to fix it with a wider bridge; I’ll post about that when it arrives. In the interim, I decided to upgrade the tuners. After hours of scouring guitar forums, I settled on a set of Gotoh SD91-MGT vintage locking tuners (thanks eBay). I’m a lazy person, and wanted a simple drop-in replacement set.

After taking off the old strings, removal of the stock tuners was an easy job with a small screwdriver. I thought I could get away with retaining the stock bushes, but I was wrong. I was somewhat nervous about removing the old ones, but found a straightforward way to do it: I have a nail punch that fit the peg holes nicely, and all six came out with a bit of gentle persuasion from a regular hammer.

Installation of the new bushes was a little nerve-racking. The new tuners didn’t come with a bushing tool, and some of the YouTube clips I studied suggested using a hammer to just whack them in. I opted instead to use a G-clamp as a makeshift press ($15 from a local hardware store). This worked fine, and damage was mitigated with some strips of 3M painters tape.

Putting in the new tuners took a little bit of time, mostly due to a cautious approach. Ensuring correct placement – green dots for the higher strings – I was careful with the screwdriver to ensure I didn’t strip the screws.

I’ll need tapered strings, since the diameter of the largest tuner is 2mm (or 0.0787in). Some sets of Bass VI Balanced Heavy Gauges are on order from the fine folks at Stringjoy. Can’t wait!