Arrgghh, changing a bass string with a vintage-style tuner

[Metaltastic]

Got a .50 bass string for the Eb-string (AKA G-string in E-standard) but can't get the fucking thing to stay in the hole (hardie har har) down the shaft (and again ) of the vintage bass tuners on my Jazz bass (in other words, when I tighten it, no matter how tightly I try to wrap it around the peg, it always pops out) - is there some technique to this that I'm missing?

EDIT: Wow, I'm retarded - wrote "whole" instead of "hole", usually it's the opposite

 

[53Crëw]

Hey Marcus - If it's the kind I'm thinking of, I stick the string down the hole in the middle of the tuner shaft. Then bend it off to the side and start winding the tuning peg while I try to pull some tension on the string with my other hand. (Basically pulling the string away from the body, or else toward the bridge to "take up the slack".) If the string doesn't have any tension on it while you start to wind it, it seems to want to jump off the tuning post. At least, that's my experience. Not sure if that's any help.... LOL.

 

[Jind]

Can't say that I have that "popping out" problem - perhaps size does matter. Oh wait - your talking about a bass? Ah, never mind, don't know anything about that.

 

[thedonutman]

Bass tuners are different; the strings go down and around rather than through an around like on guitars.

Edit: 53Crëw has beat me to it!

 

[Metaltastic]

Thanks Steve, and yeah, that's how I've been doing it (hence the popping out of the hole down the shaft part ), the thing is no matter how tightly I try to pinch it, when I either turn the peg to tighten it or stretch the string away from the body with my right hand (as you mentioned), it slips around the peg and out of the hole (rather than "grabbing" at the inside edge of the peg like the other, thicker strings did) Time to grab some pliers for pinching duty, I'll see if that helps - what a stupid design

 

[Metaltastic]

MOTHERFUCKER - the pliers idea didn't work, so instead I busted out my allen wrenches, found one that fit pretty much perfectly in the vertical hole in the tuner with the string in it, and crammed it in (to hold the string in and keep it from popping out) - but by this point I had put so much strain on the string from repeated efforts that this time the ball end snapped off Oh well, how often does one use the top string on a bass anyway, I'll make do, and I have to admit, it is pretty funny

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I hate split shaft tuning pegs.

 

[53Crëw]

[snip] by this point I had put so much strain on the string from repeated efforts that this time the ball end snapped off

Ohhh Nooooes. Bummer dude.

 

[Metaltastic]

Hahaha, good catch

 

[NicholasDWolfwood]

It's really not hard. I leave around 2 inches of string on the tuning peg end of it. Put that into the hole, hold it there and bend the string into an L shape. Make sure you're string it so that it's wrapping down, not up. (IE, the part that went in the hole should be at the top when you're done, while the string goes through the nut from the bottom of the wrappings.) As you string it, make sure you're keeping tension on it (I generally pull on the string, towards the bridge, as I'm tuning it up.)