All that string wound around your tuning posts – is that really causing your tuning problems?
Should you empty your wallet for a Floyd-type locking system and turn restrings and intonation-setting into half-day torture sessions?
Let’s skip the folklore and the “seems like” guess work, and apply some of our old high school physics to this question.
The Math
A typical tuner post is 6 mm in diameter. Six millimeters is like: 0.236″
The circumference of the post is: 0.236 × π ≈ 0.742″
Three complete wraps therefore use approximately: 0.742 × 3 ≈ 2.23″ of string
WAKE UP! We’re just getting to the good stuff!
Now consider an example guitar with approximately:
- 25″ scale length
- 2″ of string beyond the saddle
- 3″ from the nut to the tuner
That gives approximately: 30″ of suspended string
Add the tuner wraps: 30″ + 2.23″ = 32.23″ total
The three tuner wraps represent only about: 6.9% of the total string length
Or, comparing the wraps directly with the 30″ of suspended string: 2.23 ÷ 30 ≈ 7.4%
So three wraps account for only about 7% of the string in this example.
But Wait – There’s More!
But even that doesn’t mean they’re responsible for 7% of your tuning problems. Those strings are wound tightly around the posts, creating friction which makes them less susceptible to movement or stretching than suspended strings.
It’s probably safe to say that friction lowers the 7% to 5% or less.
No Way! A Floyd System Definitely Helps More Than 5%
Yes, “Grasshopper”, it actually does usually help quite a bit. “But how, if it affects such a small percentage of my strings?”
Excellent question, Grasshopper!
The reason a locking system helps so much is that nuts are almost never cut properly. Most come from the factory, and are installed on new – even very pricey new guitars with nut slots filed perpendicular to the fretboard and sharp back edges on each slot.
That may not sound like a big deal, but it absolutely is.
If slots were properly filed at a downward angle – the same angle strings take from the tuning post to the nut, there would be very little added friction. And if the back edge of the nut slots were slightly rounded, there would be nothing for strings to bind on.
These two things dramatically affect your tuning stability as does one other thing:
Stretching Strings
So many locking system articles, YouTubes, etc. will say that you’ll realize tuning stability after several hours/days/weeks of playing.
But you don’t have to wait even minutes for tuning stability, if your strings have been properly stretched. And “properly” does not mean pulling up at the twelfth fret like everyone says.
“So why didn’t my tech know these things?”
The sad reason, Grasshopper, is that most techs learn from “hand-me-down” information that goes back generations to the first “techs”.
And who were the first techs? Experienced guitar players that had to do their own maintenance and repairs and passed their information down to others.
But the best guitar players are artists. They don’t tend to be engineers. So much of the information was based on “feel”, “eyeballing” and “noodling”, which pretty well boils down to guesswork in many cases.
Want to Learn More?
Check out Guitar Tech Academy. Their onsite course will turn you into a profitable, professional guitar tech in just eight weeks. Their soon to open online courses will be available by January 2027.
Would you rather just have the work done for you? If in Central Florida, head to Hank’s Guitar Shop in Clearwater. If you’re not local, ship your guitar to Nationwide-Guitar-Repair.com for the best setup you ever had!