A very common guitar upgrade is to swap out crappy, cheapo, open-backed (or “stamped”) tuners and replace them with better, enclosed die-cast tuners. I’d like to show you how to do that, and point out a few potential dangers along the way. The example shown uses an acoustic guitar with 3-a-side tuners, but you could follow the same process for an electric, be it 3-a-side or 6-in-line. Click on any of the images to see bigger versions. Here’s the patient. The guitar itself plays well and sounds pretty good, but the tuners have become almost impossible to turn, so it’s time for a change. Although these may look like enclosed tuners, they are simply open-backed tuners, with nothing more than a back cover, which doesn’t even stop dust from getting in. Decent enclosed tuners can be had very cheap these days. This particular guitar didn’t really warrant Schaller or Grover tuners, but the replacement no-name tuners it is about to receive are a huge improvement over what was there before. I sh...