Harley Benton Parts Locking Tuners 3R/3L Chr

Like many purchasers of this fantastic Les Paul homage, in my case the SC-550 II FTF B-Stock (B stock I hear you ask. Well yes B stock and this guitar came to me in 100% perfect condition), I wasn't a fan of the mucus coloured tuning pegs.

After some consideration, I decided to buy a chrome set of locking tuners. I purchased a set (Chinese) that worked out to be less than half the price and when they arrived I set about fitting them. All went well, however when I tuned up the high E and B strings, both were snapped at the machine heads.

Off they came and went straight back for a refund. I was looking at these Harley Benton locking tuners for a while and went ahead and ordered a set.

Now, I already knew that the holes in my SC-550 II FTF would be too small so ahead of time I ordered a reamer tool from an online shop for £4.50. When the locking tuner set arrived, it was so so easy to enlarge the holes in the headstock and visually, you would never have known that this quick job had been performed.

In went the new tuners within 40 mins including strings and fully up to tune. WOW! What a visual difference to this splendid instrument. The turning is stable and smooth and the convenience of locking tuners is worth the price alone.

well, half of the locking-knobs aren't properly attached to the locking-screws,
they just came off as I tried to loosen the locking-screws.
this made winding the higher 3 strings kind of a pain in the butt

I worked it out by loosening the screws with a pair of tongs.
I was then able to turn the locking-scews open and ( after reattaching the turning-knobs ) close them properly

I won't send them back, because this is easy & cheap enough for me to fix at home, also, it's a minor malfunction for something I will use about once / twice a year

otherwise they work great
wish they could've been black, but the silver isn't bad
easy & obvious enough to set up for me
( no manual is included anyway )
if you're unsure;
just retrace the steps of deconstruction and do it backwards ;)

I use these on my Harley Benton CST24T in Emerald Green, which is already an amazing guitar... But now... Well, let's just say my only decision for my next guitar is which colour CST24T do I buy next? I will absolutely be buying Harley Benton locking tuners for any and every guitar I buy from now on!

Pros

Easy to install, do exactly what they say on the tin. I rarely have to tune my guitar now and it makes re-stringing an absolute doddle!

Cons

That these had to be purchased separately... Personally, I think every guitar should have them as standard. But that's not a knock on the product, just my opinion.

I bought two sets of these to retrofit to a cheap mandolin that I bought, which had horrible quality plate tuners. I needed something small and compact, and locking seemed like a sensible extra perk for not too much money.

The mini keystone heads are small enough to not be cramped on a mandolin, the locking function works well, and the gearing is nice and low, and NEARLY as smooth as the top names on the market, but not quite and there is a tiny bit of gear backlash.

Overall, very happy with the purchase and the job they do. Fits the bill perfectly.

Now, what to do with the four tuners I have left over...