Anyone replace their tuner buttons on a Mexican Stratocaster?

I recently bought a daphne blue 2004 MIM Stratocaster off of Craigslist. I was wanting to replace the chrome tuner buttons on it with pearloid tuner buttons. One of a couple of mods since I'm planning on getting a pearloid guard and tremolo cover as well.

I've searched all over the internet and even e-mailed Stewart MacDonald and Schaller about this. Stewart MacDonald sells a pack of 6 in-line pearloid Schaller tuner buttons. Their website says they don't fit Grover, Gotoh, or Sperzel tuners.

I have yet been able to find out what kind of tuners are on a 2004 MIM Strat. Some say Ping and I've even heard Schaller. What size and brand tuner buttons would fit (StewMac has them in large and small)?

They are Ping.

To the best of my knowledge, Ping has the widest shaft diameter of all the popular brand tuners where if you replaced them with Schallers, you would have side to side play in the shaft hole of the headstock and of course, because of the screw tab on each of the Schallers, you would have to drill an additional hole per head. In other words, they aren't 'direct' or 'exact' replacements.

You could get away with the shaft bore play as between screwing the Schallers into the back of the headstock, coupled by the fact that the Schallers have a threaded shaft sleeve. The stability would be certainly be there by the shaft nut compression into the headstock to where the shafts wouldn't be rocking around. However, if they ever work loose, it won't be long until the Schallers are pulled into ruin by string pressure. On the other hand, you don't want to over tighten them in the shaft hole either as that presents yet another set of problems including a nasty imprint from their tightening in the face of your headstock.

IMHO, Pings function just as well as Schallers. If I were you, I'd forget the Schallers due to their being extremely overpriced and what I've said above. Instead, see if you could get a set of Ping pearloid tuners. Granted, no Ping sets out there are made like the OEM Fenders with the two pins into the back of the headstock but at least the shaft size would most likely be the same. Or, you could find a set of Ping pearloids and see if you could just switch the pearloid buttons onto the OEM Fenders and see if this alone will work well.

If you can't locate a set of Ping pearloid tuners, I have a used gold set in pristine condition. E-mail me if you're interested and maybe we can work something out.

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You dig?

I replaced the stock Ping tuners in my '09 MIM Standard Strat with Shaller locking tuners. Other then installing a screw to keep them from turning, they are in fact a direct drop in for the Pings. Both are 10 mm shafts.

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Bill

I replaced mine with Gotoh. I did have to drill a bit for the screw, But no problems.

Thanks for the information.

I'm not looking to replace the whole tuner with Schaller tuners. Just looking for pearloid tuner buttons that would fit the current tuners (Ping or otherwise).

Any idea where to get just the pearloid Ping tuner buttons? A representative from Stewart MacDonald said that I could order a set of the Schaller buttons and try them out. They said, if they didn't work, I could always return them for a refund.