Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Well thank you Jos! Merry Christmas to you as well!

I know this is an old thread, but in the interest of accuracy, I need to correct something I posted. The rounded button open back machines Gretsch used were made by Waverly, not Grover. Gretsch did use Grover Sta-tites in the '30s and '40s, and continues to use them today, but in the '50s they started using Waverly tuning machines. Starting at about '64-'65 Gretsch used Van Ghent machines as well. By the early '70s, they used doghouse-shaped semi-enclosed machines. Höfner used the same doghouse machines and may have manufactured them as well.

fabandgear wrote: ↑Wed Dec 28, 2022 5:19 am I know this is an old thread, but in the interest of accuracy, I need to correct something I posted. The rounded button open back machines Gretsch used were made by Waverly, not Grover.

Like these?

These are the Waverly tuners Gretsch used from the 1950s through the late '60s/early '70s.

Gretsch used these Van Ghents starting in the early '60s.

In the early '70s through the Booneville, Arkansas factory closure, Gretsch used these machines. I think they were manufactured by Höfner. I've heard them referred to as "Pyramid" tuners. I always called them "doghouse" tuners.

fabandgear wrote: ↑Wed Dec 28, 2022 8:08 pm These are the Waverly tuners Gretsch used from the 1950s through the late '60s/early '70s.

Any ideas on when Waverly redesigned the mounting plate and upgraded the gear?

I think Stewart MacDonald owns the Waverly trade name now. Those machines on the Martin you pictured are Modern Waverly copies of the old Grover Sta-Tite machines. Gretsch uses them on a lot of their reissue guitars now.

I wish StewMac would reissue the plain Gretsch Waverly heads (Harmony and a few other companies used them, too). It's a pain to hunt down original Waverly machines for a Gretsch restoration, not to mention now being quite expensive.