Mandolin String Winders

Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke BSEd, MA

'songthief

Letters...I get letters!

Well, actually I don't get "letters" I get emails.
Well, actually again, those emails contain words
which are made up of letters. Oh whatever.

Stringwinders...

Those nifty crank things that allow you to speed
wind the strings onto the tuning machines of your
guitar or mandolin or banjo. The ones that are in
the fishbowl when you check out at mega music chain
are cheap. It doesn't break your heart when you lose
them. They're usually pretty soft. If you don't lose
them they kind of melt and deform. When that happens
they're kind of useless. And ...

They don't fit Mandolins!
At least not very easily, they don't.

Here's a string winder that WILL fit your mando.

It's the Planet Waves Pro-Winder

Very, very cool design
because it fits large guitar machines as well as small
mando buttons or the small buttons like you'd find on
a Kluson equipped telecaster. And extra groovy is that
it has a string cutter built in to the thing. Wind the
strings onto the pegs, then cut off the excess string
without having to go looking for those dikes (not that
there's anything wrong with that.)

Here it is in the two positions you'd typically use it
on my F style Mando.

  
     6th String Vertical             6th String Horizontal

I hope the photo shows that there's clearance on all sides
of the socket thingie. It doesn't touch the adjacent peg
buttons as you wind.

Here's a similar pair of photos on the 8th string

   
     8th String Vertical              8th String Horizontal

And here's a photo looking into the socket part of
the gizmo. I hope the pic shows that there are TWO
grooves. One is wider and longer than the other.
They are set in a perpenducular cross to each other

Socket View of the ProWinder

In use, you would use the larger groove for larger machine
buttons, like 3+3 guitar grovers and Schallers. And you would
use the smaller groove for mandolin buttons, mini inline guitar
buttons etc. Actually you could certainly use the larger groove
for the small buttons, it just gives you a more solid feel when
you use the smaller groove.

And just for comparison, here's a pic of one of
those bargain, soft plastic things that you get
at the checkout counter.

El Cheapo Windo String Thingo

In the pic, you see my fingers stabilizing the thing on the
mando button. The socket in this little winder is GIANT
compared to the little mando buttons. It will "work" but
it's a pain in the buttuski to try and keep it centered.

Hope that helps explain a little groovy device that will
FIT small button tuners like mandolins.

If you have any questions, send me an email.
If you know good margarita recipes, send me an email.
If you know the secret of life, come by Saturday.
Bring your weed eater.

Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke - songthief